


Interstate Love Song

by ravenstrange



Series: Save Tonight [1]
Category: Cyberpunk 2077 (Video Game)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, But also not at all soft Johnny, Character Study, Cyberpunk 2077-Typical Violence, Description of V is Vague on Purpose, Did I Mention Angst?, Eventual Relationships, Eventual Sex, F/M, Fix-It, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Post-Ending 'The Sun', Soft Johnny Silverhand
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-06
Updated: 2021-02-09
Packaged: 2021-03-17 07:22:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 14
Words: 37,909
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28596165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ravenstrange/pseuds/ravenstrange
Summary: As it always does, it starts with a heist. This time to the Crystal Palace, to try to regain someone she’s lost. And this time, she’s a woman on top of the world, with four months to live and nothing to lose. Until, suddenly, she haseverythingto lose.
Relationships: Johnny Silverhand & Female V, Johnny Silverhand/Female V, Johnny Silverhand/V
Series: Save Tonight [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2114709
Comments: 205
Kudos: 373





	1. Chapter 1

Every night, the dream is exactly the same.

She’s back in front of Alt, in front of Johnny. She knows that her body is done for, she knows that there’s no place for her here anymore. She tells him, “Body’s yours. You have the keys.” She means it, she’s made her peace.

He shakes his head, “ _No._ Told you I wasn’t gonna do that to you, and I meant it.”

She fights him every step of the way, but he doesn’t fight back. She wants him to fight back. She shoves him to the ground and he doesn’t react – she apologies, says that maybe he’s rubbing off on her a little too much. That gets a small smile out of him, but nothing more.

But it’s the end. They both know it is, and she doesn’t want it to be.

He reaches the end of the path, and they stare at each other, words left unsaid dying between them.

“Just…promise me that you won’t forget me.” She sobs, hugging herself tightly. He doesn’t respond, but he half smiles, putting his hand on her shoulder. It’s the most real he’s ever felt, the only real significant touch they’ve ever had, and it kills her.

He walks beyond the wall, to disappear beyond it, and she screams after him, “Don’t leave me!” but he’s gone.

Then it goes black, and she wakes up in a cold sweat, screaming the same thing every time.

_Don’t leave me._

Every morning, it’s exactly the same.

She wakes up alone.

She pulls herself out of the bed, to the lavish apartment she doesn’t quite feel like she earned. She wasn’t exactly present during the raid on Arasaka; that was all Johnny. Trusted him to get them to where they needed to be, and he did. Going it alone hadn’t been the plan at first, but what choice was there really to have? He didn’t want her to have the Aldecaldos lives on her conscious and she argued that he wouldn’t want Rogue on his either.

This was their problem, and they’d fix it alone.

It wasn’t exactly ‘fixing it’ like she had thought they would. All the glory and all of the fame went straight to her. She was finally _someone_ but she didn’t like the cost.

It was fucking pathetic when she thought about it, because her goal before had been to save herself and get Johnny out of her head.

Now he was gone, she felt this ever-present longing that she couldn’t exactly put the name to. Night City was at her fingertips, and instead all she could do was wonder if there had been another way to save them both. Not to resign to the fate that apparently had been written out; at the end it was always going to be him or her.

At first, she had been okay with that. But somewhere, it changed that she wanted it to be both.

It wasn’t.

So, she just continues to follow routine. She showers, she gets dressed; she keeps his aviators and dogtags, and the Samarai jacket. Anything else of his that she had collected remains preserved in a box. As if there is some fucking miracle she didn’t see coming and he’d come strolling through her stupid rich gold apartment that she didn’t even fucking want.

Had Jackie’s death hit her this hard? She supposed it did, but this felt different. Stronger. Another emotion she refused to put a word to, because there was no point.

Death followed her around like a lost puppy, and pretty soon it was going to be her turn.

Routine now states that she gets to take a call from Del, and then gets transported to Afterlife. Then, she’s told she has a client waiting for her, they get down to biz, she completes the job, and is home before dinner. Sometimes. When she’s not drinking with Claire at the bar.

But as it hits the time that Del usually comes calling, nothing happens. There’s nothing on the holo, there’s no AV waiting for her outside.

Sensing it as a brief moment in freedom, she puts on his aviators and walks out to the elevator, punching the button for the garage.

***

It doesn’t feel right to use the Porsche, and she’s sold the rest of the cars; all she has left is that and Jackie’s Arch, so the Arch it is.

V takes off into the city streets, and just rides in silence, not exactly sure where she’s going until she arrives. She hasn’t been out here since she returned two months ago and knows that she should have come sooner.

As she parks the bike and gets off of it, she wonders how long it will be until people are visiting _her_ at the Columbarium. Or what’s left of her, if there is anything at all.

(4 or 5 months, give or take. But she doesn’t focus on it.)

She came here once before while Johnny was still with her. He commented on those that he knew, and she could feel his remorse as they stopped at certain graves. She felt his sadness when they stopped at Jackie’s and felt his anger when they stopped at Evelyn’s. When they stopped at Alt’s, she was almost knocked over with the overwhelming feeling of regret.

Now, there was nothing there, no other feeling to combine with her own, no one to stand silently in respect with.

But as she reached Alt’s plaque, another one was beside it.

_Robert John Linder. The guy who saved my life._

She had done it as a tribute after the night in the oil fields. The first time that she felt her feelings for him shift, the first time they had been honest with each other.

 _You have no idea how much I want that to be true, V_ , he had said after, arms resting on his knees, his head hanging low. He had raised his head after, to look at her and say, _I’ll do anything I can to make that true._

The level of honestly that she hadn’t expected, as she scratched his name into the metal pile that would surely be used up from scrappers at some point. But to them, it had been proof that he was there.

Now, this was proof to the world he had been there.

“Shit,” V’s hand softly touched the plague, the digital imaging of the letters flickering against her skin. “I wish this wasn’t so fucking hard to look at still. But,” she paused, a coughing fit oncoming, and as she pulled her hand away, more blood on her hand. She placed her hand, blood and all, against the plaque, “But hey, looks like I’ll be joining you soon.”

She bowed her head, closing her eyes, and was silent for a moment before she heard a crackling sound. When she opened her eyes, the digital words were glitching against her skin, crackling before fading out. She pulled her hand back, looking around to the other plaques to find none of the other ones were glitching out.

Of course. Just her luck, she couldn’t even fucking do _this_ right.

It crackled again, the words changing right in front of her eyes.

_Not gone. Afterlife._

She rubbed at her eyes, thinking it was the Relic acting up, but she hadn’t seen any notification of malfunction. V reached out to touch the words, as if she could actually touch the digital construct (wasn’t the first time she had done it, after all), but before her hand made contact with the stone, it glitched again.

_Afterlife. Go to Afterlife._

When she pulled her hand away and stepped back, the plaque glitched back to how it was before.

“The fuck?” She mutters, rubbing at her eyes again, and makes a mental note to go to Vik when she has the time. If this is another impact of the Relic malfunctioning, well that’d just be fucking great wouldn’t it?

She returns to Jackie’s Arch and heads towards Afterlife in silence, figuring that despite the strange start, it was just going to be just another day.

***

Afterlife is busy when she walks in, bright as it always is, and she keeps Johnny’s aviators on instead of taking them off.

Claire, as expected, is at the bar, waiting, and before V even sits down, she places the usual drink down. V takes it without a word, downs the drink, and sets the glass down again. “Is there anyone here to see me?”

“Nah, your booth is ready for you, but there’s no one there. Wasn’t expecting you to come in today, honestly.” Claire shrugs, “You’re not usually in this late.”

V shrugs, “My morning was a bit rough.”

“Is that why you’re still wearing the sunglasses?”

“One of the reasons, yeah.”

Claire makes another Silverhand and puts it in front of V. “Then maybe one more will help you.”

“Thanks,” V downs the drink, “Are you sure there’s no one here?”

“Why?”

“Just…yeah, it’s nothing. I’m gonna go check on something, but then I’m most likely calling it. Gotta sleep off this feeling,” She lies, not at all successfully, but if Claire doesn’t believe her, then she doesn’t say anything.

And Claire was right, there was no one waiting in the booth; officially hers since Rogue had turned everything over to her. Despite knowing that V only had months left, it made the most sense to her. “You’re the new Queen of Afterlife,” Rogue had said, “In more ways than one.”

She had, after all, cheated death twice now. Both times because of someone else.

There was a buzz in her back pocket, her Holo ringing, but when she took it out upon entering the booth, the ringing abruptly stopped. No caller ID, no indication on who it was.

When she sat down, it rang again, but when she picked it up, it hung up.

She rubbed at her temple, removing the aviators, and closing her eyes.

When she opened them, she saw someone she didn’t recognize standing in front of her. “Can I help you?”

“I’ve been sent here by a mutual acquaintance,” The man said, and smiled, “This is for you.” He held out a shard, and V raised her eyebrow.

“Do you take me for an idiot? I’m not going to jack in a shard from someone I don’t know. How can I trust you won’t kill me?”

The man shrugged and set the shard down on the table in front of her. “I won’t, and I doubt our mutual friend would either.”

“What corp are you with?”

“I’m not with a corp. An independent contractor who knows you are the best at what you do.”

V leaned forward and took the shard, “If this kills me, or does anything to harm me, every single person in this bar will have a gun on you, do you understand? You will not leave here alive.”

The man stood straight, his hands behind his back, “You got the message in the cemetery, correct? Trust me, this is not to harm, but to help.”

She froze at that, her hand halfway to her jack, as she eyed the man in front of her. She scanned him, but nothing out of the ordinary stood out. In fact, _nothing_ stood out. Just an ordinary man in a suit.

This screamed bad news. She could feel it down to her bones. She could only imagine Johnny appearing next to her now, telling her this was a fucking bad idea, and they needed to delta. Flatline the guy and whoever sent him, because this was going to be bad news.

But she was already a woman at the top with nothing else to lose.

So, she slid the shard in.

The data filled her view, schematics of the Crystal Palace. Information on each level of the floating casino, and then in the center core of the station, there was something else.

Room labeled ‘laboratory’. No reason for _that_ on a flying casino. But more information started to fly in. Information on those who were part of the ‘Secure your Soul’ program. Locations of the bodies of more high-profile guests or those labeled as a ‘risk’.

And then the last piece of information came in. Those who were preserved, were preserved in cryostasis. And under lock and key was the preserved body of one Johnny Silverhand.

The information stopped, and V’s vision went completely black, as another message appeared. _Cryo to be purged in 72 hours. Only 12 hours once body is out of cryo. Hurry._

Then, the message disappeared, and her vision cleared. As she removed the shard, she realized the man she was speaking to was gone.

“V? You alright? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

V lifted her head, to see Rogue leaning against the wall at the booth. V stood up and crossed over to Rogue, “Any idea on how I can get to the Crystal Palace?”

Rogue raised an eyebrow, “I know that look. What’s the job?”

“Rogue, can you help me get there?” V replied, more panic in her voice than she wanted to express in a public location. She held the shard out to Rogue, who took it and viewed the data.

V watched as her expression went from confusion to shock extremely quickly.

“Yeah, I have an idea. Meet me at Orbital Air in two hours. But what are you hoping this will accomplish?”

“Just…let me figure that part out, okay? Two hours.” She grabbed the aviators and practically ran out of the booth and to her bike waiting outside the club.

***

“I don’t like this.”

“I’m not asking if you _like_ it, Judy, I’m asking if you can do it. For me?”

“Yeah, I can do it, but it’s not going to be easy, and I’m gonna need Vik’s help! Do you even know if you can get back in there? ‘Saka Tower is even more locked down after your last stunt. Hell, I’m surprised it’s still standing!”

“I don’t think I have to go back there. I just need the tech, if I can hardwire the data onto it…”

“I have the tech, I started looking into it when you told me about the Relic in your head the first time. The hardware isn’t the problem. You just need to get it. It’s in my apartment, in the safe. I’ll send you the code to unlock it. There are two…just in case.”

“In case of?”

“Thought I might be able save you with it. Get that asshole out of your head for good.”

“Judy…”

“I know, I know. Get to my apartment, okay? I’m coming back to NC; I should be there when you get back. I’ll connect with Vik.”

V let out the first sigh of relief that she could, “Judy?”

“Yeah,” Judy’s voice was lighter, “You don’t have to say it. I know. I’ll see you soon, okay? Just be careful.”

“Always am.”

“That’s a lie,” Judy laughs, and hangs up.

V doesn’t waste any time, because now she’s on even more of a timer. Less than 72 hours to go.

***

V drives up to Orbital Air on Jackie’s Arch, driving right past the suspiciously empty security station and straight to the back, where there is a space jet waiting. Two cars are parked in front of it, and two people are in front of the cars talking.

She gets closer and gets off the bike, and raises an eyebrow, “Kerry? What are you doing here?”

He grins, as Rogue gestures to him, “Best way to get you to Crystal Palace; being the bodyguard of the rockerboy who is going to play it.”

“Gotta say, you landed me a preem gig, V, gotta say I’m impressed!” Kerry laughed.

“I filled him in,” Rogue adds, “Fitting since I won’t be able to join you.”

“You’re not coming?”

“No, someone needs to help you coordinate things down here. You just focus on getting Johnny, and getting to an escape pod. The rest is handled.” Rogue handed V a shard, and talked through the details, “Kerry will be playing a show tonight, with the main stage being directly above the central vault.”

“Plannin’ lots of pyrotechnics,” Kerry jumped in, “Pick the right moment, and _boom_ , blast through the floor – no one will suspect a thing.”

“And me posing as your bodyguard will get me access to security; I can shut down everything right before,” V crossed her arms over her chest, “This might work. Fuck, it _has_ to work. I don’t see any other options.” The shard is disconnected, and she pockets it, “Connect with Vik and Judy, they’re working on a plan for when we return, I just got to get the engram.”

Rogue crosses her arms, “And how?”

“Connect to their systems. If I can connect with Alt, I can get it from her.”

“Nova. We gotta get going if we’re gonna make this timeline,” Kerry says, and slaps his hand on Rogue’s shoulder, as she looks at him with a raised eyebrow. “Come on, V. Let’s go make some more history.”

V starts to head after Kerry to the ship, but Rogue stops her, “Just…be careful. I don’t like that you’re risking your life for Johnny.”

“He did the same for me, Rogue,” V replies, “I’m not going to let him down.”

If there was something else that Rogue wanted to say, she doesn’t. She only nods and gestures for V to be on her way to the ship, the rockerboy and the bodyguard off to the Crystal Palace.


	2. Chapter 2

Once they’re led into Kerry’s suite in the casino, they start to unpack and go over their plans. V already has full security clearance to the cameras and floors around the performance area, at Kerry’s insistence – and no one on the station seemed to want to piss him off.

He tells her the set list, and when exactly the pyrotechnics will go off, down to the exact moment. The other security guards for the station won’t be backstage – they have specifically informed people that is not how Kerry Eurodyne operates, and again no one wants to piss him off.

“Fuck, Kerry, you’re a king to these gonks!” V laughs, “If I had known this was going to happen, I would have hung around with you more.”

“What, you wanna play bodyguard to ol’ me? Fuck, I don’t think I could actually afford you.”

“If this works, I’ll do it for free.”

Kerry barks out laughter, throwing his head back with it, “Oh, fuck you,” He replies, “Like hell. Listen, gotta go practice; even if this show is a cover, I still want it to fucking kick ass, you know?” He grins, and V takes it as her cue to go and change into her part.

The aviators stay, the dog tags are hidden under her shirt, but everything else is different. A tight fit all black suit, hair slicked to the sides, looking the part of an intimidating bodyguard. Her reputation was following her, of course, but the outfit would do more for the intimidation than she would. Especially if she managed to have a coughing fit in the middle of all this mess.

When she asks the head of security for access to their Netrunner room, they agree without batting an eye. When she asks for complete privacy, and then shuts down their surveillance in the room, they don’t argue.

It’s either her reputation or Kerry’s, she’s not 100% sure on it. She is 100% sure she doesn’t fucking care, especially if it gets her what she needs.

She jacks into the chair, hoping that she can reach Alt, if just this one time. If she can, it’d be a fucking miracle.

And with less than 48 hours to go, she needs a fucking miracle.

It’s just as wobby getting into the system, and it’s not as smooth as it was when Johnny was still in her head. But the technology of the relic is still there, and it’s only a few seconds before Alt pinpoints her. “Hey, Alt, I don’t have a lot of time and I need to—”

“Yes, I can help you.”

“Uh,” V blinks, or she thinks she does, and she’s not as used to this strange Alt as she should have been, considering everything. “So you know that I need—”

“Johnny’s engram and the extra copy of your own, yes. I have transferred you a code, you need to input it into the security system, and I will help you handle the rest once you reach the central chamber.”

“And then?”

“When you’re there, put in the hardware and two copies will be made. You won’t have much time.”

“Okay, then I better get going.”

“Yes.” Alt’s image starts to disappear, but V yells out.

“Wait! I have another question!”

“You want to know how he is.”

“I…” She falters, “Yes.”

“You will see soon enough. Go.” Then Alt is gone.

It seems too easy, to immediately get what she needs to complete the plan, but by now V is no longer surprised at anything. Nothing goes as planned, or everything goes as planned, there never seems to be an in between with anything that she does.

She resurfaces in the Netrunner room and jacks out, confirming the information Alt supplied her before she jacks into the security network.

Alt’s code is inputted, and soon there is a message in V’s view; _I have access of the systems. Everything is ready._

Now, all she has to do is wait.

***

_“What do you think it will be like?” He appears out of the corner of her eye, leaning against the railing on the roof._

_“What?”_

_“Bein’ free of me,” He replies, a long drag of his cigarette after, smoke bellowing out from between his lips. She’s given up deciding how strange it is that she can smell the smoke even if it’s not real._

_She shrugs, “I don’t know.”_

_He puts the cigarette out and flicks it over the edge, and glitches out. He glitches back in, sitting on the edge of the roof with her, mirroring her pose. Legs hanging over the edge, hands resting behind them._

_His finger grazes hers and for a small moment she wonders if she can feel that as she desperately wants to, or if it was another figment of her imagination._

_He’s heard that thought, she knows he has, but his reaction is just to clear his throat and not move. She dares to inch one of her fingers towards his, and she feels the cool metal of his hand. She expects him to move away, but he doesn’t._

_“I’m kind of getting used to having you around,” V says quietly, “Maybe I don’t want to be free of you.”_

_He chuckles, “If only. Kinda gettin’ used to residence here.”_

_“Oh, are you?”_

_“Eh, company isn’t so bad half the time,” He admits with a shrug, a sort of flippant tone to his voice but she can feel the honestly in the statement. She’s quiet before she laughs, quickly turning the situation into something less serious._

_“Yeah? Can’t say the same, you’re fucking awful to have around.” She feels him relax more at her reaction, and the brief moment of whatever it was between them fades to black._

_He laughs hard at that, and he grins, “Fuck you too, choom.”_

_“Right back at ya.”_

_“You know, I think I fucked someone on this roof before,” He continues, and V immediately gets up and stands to her feet._

_“Oh, fucking gross, Johnny!”_

_He laughs harder, and she kicks him but he glitches out before contact is made. Safer that way._

***

The stage is set. Literally. Kerry and his band are all set up, and V has complete control of backstage. The explosives are primed and set in the exact location they need, and with Alt’s help, everyone else is completely locked from going backstage.

The set starts, and it’s loud – just what V had come to expect from Kerry, and she didn’t expect him to do anything other than pull out all the stops.

Because she knows he’s done his best to get past Johnny and stop living in the past, but dammit if he doesn’t want him back as much as she does.

Maybe not as much as she does, she feels completely lost without him, still ignoring the feelings in her chest and what they actually meant – if she only had a few months left to her life, let her spend it how she wanted to. And right now, that want was to get him back.

_We’re going to get you back, or I’m going to die trying_. It’s a morbid way of thinking, but that’s exactly what she is now; with nothing left to lose, and nothing really left to gain, there was only this.

He saved her life _twice_ now. The least she could do was try to return the favor. Right?

Kerry was getting close to the part in the set with the pyrotechnics, all to be triggered from him on stage. She checked her holo, getting close to the time, and got her finger on the detonator trigger. If this worked…

The pyrotechnics went off and V hit the detonator, the explosion timed with the blast from the show, and as the crowd cheered, the dust settled. A hole, down to the central chamber, and V jumped right in, everything else be dammed.

“Alt, I’m in the chamber,” V connected, “What now?”

“Down the hall to the left, I have unlocked his status pod but you do not have much time. Connect to the terminal next to the pod, I will copy the engrams over.”

Everything seemed like a blur, running to the location Alt indicated, expecting there to be a fight but nothing coming up. It was how it was rumored to happen at ‘Saka Tower, when Johnny took over and made a run for it. The reason she was where she was today.

She wasn’t sure if she should be concerned or happy that Alt was helping in the exact same way, but she didn’t have time to dwell on it.

Down the hall, to the left, she slid into the cryo room and ran for the terminal, jacking in both of the hardware pieces Judy gave her. “Alt, they’re in.”

“Done. Disconnect and open the Cryo pod. Be careful.”

She pulled the engrams out of the system and pocketed them, and looked around the room for something, anything that she could use to help carry Johnny’s body out of there. All she found was a blanket, and she groaned. It would have to do.

Blanket in hand, she hit the terminal and the pod opened, and as the door hissed open, no alarms sounded. Another thing she could most likely thank Alt for.

The smoke cleared, and there it was – Johnny’s body, though lifeless. She gingerly eased him out and wrapped him in a blanket, and picked him up in her arms, careful to how she held him. She gently moved the blanket over his face, for the sake of getting out of there alive, but for the sake of not wanting to see him like this – a cold, lifeless body. It didn’t feel right. It wasn’t right.

“Alt?”

“Opening all doors to exit, follow the path to Kerry’s private space jet. He’s waiting.”

“Right,” V muttered, and started the walk to their escape, as fast as she could go, the added weight of Johnny’s body weighing her down.

“We’re going to make it, and you’re going to be okay,” She spoke quietly, knowing he wouldn’t hear it, that he couldn’t hear it. “Just a little more.”

True to Alt’s word, Kerry was waiting at the private docking platform, all cameras turned off, not another soul in sight. Kerry was pacing anxiously in front of the ship, and when he laid eyes on V he sighed in relief. “Fuck, you…you fucking did it. Let’s go, we gotta delta!”

“We’re ok, security cameras are off.” She walked up to the ship and walked in after Kerry, getting them situated to the trip back down to Earth.

“You fuckin’ sure about that?”

“I don’t fucking know, ask Alt!” She screamed back, “Let’s fucking go!” She gingerly set Johnny’s body down on one of the beds, securing him the best that she could.

Kerry went to the cockpit and sat down at the controls, “Here goes nothing,” as they took off from the Crystal Palace, and back to earth.

Now that Johnny’s body was out of cryo, they were running against the clock.

_You have 12 hours. Good luck, V._ It’s a message that appears in her vision and disappears quickly. She doesn’t have to ask who it’s from, she knows.

She doesn’t dare pull the blanket back, she doesn’t dare look at his body, not like this. She takes her seat, strapping in as they break the atmosphere heading back to Night City.

***

_They break into the fan’s apartment relatively easy, and it’s then that V realizes why. Or rather, Johnny points it out, and starts laughing. “Lock is keyed to biometrics. Fucker musta got my hair or some shit at some point.”_

_“And with you in my head, I can just walk right in. Fucking preem.”_

_“Just get Kerry’s damn guitar and get out, all the worship here is getting under my skin.” He’s glitched from her side and is now lounging in the middle of the stairs, leaning back against a stair, legs spread, and V can’t help but take in the sight. It’s all she allows herself, because she sees Johnny has caught on, and he’s smirking at her._

_She rolls her eyes and maneuvers round him, getting to the top level. “What, you don’t like that a Samurai psychofan is hanging around, and their focus was more on Eurodyne than you?” She pokes her head into the first room, bedroom, and starts poking around._

_“There’s no accounting for taste.”_

_“Apparently,” She says, as she turns to look at Johnny, and she holds up a pair of leather pants._

_He looks down at what he’s wearing, and looks at what V is holding, the connection is clear. “What the fuck?”_

_She just laughs, “Like you said. No accounting for taste.”_

_“Fuck you,” he smirks, and when he nudges his shoulder against hers, it feels solid. They look at each other with immediate shock, before taking a step back and creating space. Finishing the job is more important and now they want to get out of here more than before._

_But the contact has left her reeling._

_***_

The first thing he notices is how _cold_ he is.

He’s fucking shaking, he’s so fucking cold, and was this some sick prank Alt was pulling now? Days and days of nothing but stuck with the memories he had, the regrets of things he couldn’t do and say, and nothing else and now she’s making him feel _cold_ of all the things?

Fuck her. Fuck being lines of data, lines of code, this was not what he wanted.

Well, sure. What he wanted, by the end, was to save V. But selfishly, hoped there was a way to save him too.

Instead, he got half of what he wanted, and left with nothing but regrets for the rest.

But the cold stops and he’s left to his own memories again, surrounded by ones and zeros. But instead of feeling cold, he feels warmth.

Then it starts to click – and he wonders if V got his message after all.


	3. Chapter 3

“Don’t forget about me,” She sobs, and he wants to reply but the words just don’t form right. So, they don’t form at all, because what the fuck is he supposed to say in a moment like this? It’s too fucking late to say everything he wanted to say and it’s too fucking late to turn back.

He had meant what he said – when it came down to it, he’d get wiped. Save her life, so she could go on living. Continue the fight. Which was his original intent. Have her continue the fight against Arasaka and corpos, give Night City hell. But it quickly turned into a desire to have her alive, to know that someone would remember him for who he became when he was with her, not for who he _was_ when he died.

_Don’t forget about me._ Like he fucking could. He puts a hand on her shoulder, while she hugs herself tightly, and her shoulder feels solid under his hand. A shit time of realizing he could have done more than a graze of her fingertips on roof tops or moving his shoulder against hers. Doing anything more had felt like an invasion, and he didn’t want to do that.

And when he got to the bridge and started to cross over, he couldn’t mistake her screaming, “Don’t leave me!” just before he fully crossed over with Alt.

If data had a heart, and it could shatter, that was _exactly_ what it had done.

***

Alt tells him that she’ll bring him into her code eventually, but the timing isn’t right. He isn’t sure why she’s fucking around; he’s got nothing else for him now, and if she’s planning something bigger – which he can tell she is – why didn’t she just get it over with?

Instead, she just sends a technological lecture his way that he doesn’t want to understand, and he ends up flipping her off as he finds somewhere in cyberspace to wander off alone.

And being alone isn’t what he wanted either. It was funny to him, in a pathetic way, that he had wanted to be alone so damn much once he realized he was stuck with V, that now the opportunity was presented to him he hated it. He hated that he missed her damn laugh when she was telling lame ass jokes, or the way she had this shit eating grin on her face when she told at joke at his expense that went over his digital head. He hated that he missed their banter, that she could give as good as he did, and that their fighting could be explosive if they wanted it to be.

He hated that he missed watching her sleep peacefully at night, and wonder what it would be like to hold her while she slept, to feel her shift against him. Or, in the moments when he woke up and everything was too quiet, he hated how he’d panic; think she was gone, only to sigh in relief when he heard her wake up and groggily say good morning.

He hadn’t been someone who missed so badly before, because fuck human connections and actively letting in people close. Every connection he had when he was alive, he had left burning in his wake; those he cared about either died or he fucked up beyond saving. He had made progress in fixing that. He had reconnected with Kerry, said what he needed to, and actually enjoyed seeing him so damn happy again. He had said his apologies to Rogue, and repaired the friendship they had, though the romantic feelings were long gone. 

There was also the matter that Rogue called him out on his feelings long before he wanted to put words to them, and that wasn’t something he was going to allow her to be smug about.

Or wouldn’t have allowed. Not like he had the chance to do anything of it now.

In his floating around in cyberspace, he allowed his mind to wander.

He could never admit it to anyone, but the quiet moments with V had been his favorite. No bullets flying, no threat of _immediate_ death other than the Relic always on the back of their minds. Watching the rain through her window in her shitty apartment, him sitting on the couch idly playing guitar while she sat near him with the damn cat in her lap petting him. They had sat like that for hours, him just playing, her just sitting and enjoying the atmosphere.

“You don’t play that often,” she had said, and he didn’t look up from the guitar, but he could hear her mind wandering. Sometimes they didn’t close the walls between their thoughts tightly enough, sometimes thoughts went through. Right now, she was thinking this was nice, that he should do this more, that she wished they had more time.

He can feel the thought is bringing up an emotion that she doesn’t want to touch, and it’s causing the same for him getting stuck in his throat. “Usually too damn busy to do it,” he deflects, “Busiest merc in all of NC, and you forget to fuckin’ eat half the time.” He raises an eyebrow to her then, and shrugs, “Figure this is the first time you’ve just chilled for a few hours.” He returns to playing, pulling a song he knows she likes out, and waits for her to recognize it as he plays.

She smiles, and he feels the warmth the song has brought her, and he allows himself the smallest of smirks, his eyes still hidden behind his aviators, because he doesn’t want to dare himself to be more open.

“Maybe I’ll take more breaks then, if you keep playing.”

“Careful, V.”

“With?”

“Sounds like you like havin’ me around, you goin’ soft on me?” He teases, and she laughs. She throws a pillow his way, and he shifts so it phases through him.

“Fuck off, Johnny-boy.”

He just snickers and continues playing. He notices she takes more breaks after that, and he glitches in to play some tunes, and they never really acknowledge what that might mean past that.

There’s another time that he focuses on, a discovery in Pacifica. Both staring up at the defunct rollercoaster, and when he looks at her, she has that determined look that he knows a little too well. “ _No_ , V,” he immediately says, and crosses his arms, “ _No fucking way_.”

She just laughs, “What, are you scared of heights?”

He scoffs and rolls his eyes behind his shades, and she laughs again, “Holy shit, you _are!_ The great Johnny Silverhand, scared of fucking heights!”

“Fuck off,” He spits back, “You bitch.” Of course, there’s no heat behind it.

“You first, pussy,” She replies, as she starts looking around to find the power, and when she does and connects it, the rollercoaster starts to roar to life. She’s skipping towards the roller coaster with such glee that he can’t help but grin at it.

She gets in, straps in, and turns to look expectantly at him.

He makes a show of annoyance, taking one last drag of the cigarette and putting it out with his boot, before he glitches out of frame, and glitches back next to her. He puts on the safety straps, out of habit, “I bet you’re going to scream like a little girl.”

“Challenge accepted,” she replies, as the coaster starts its climb up to the top. And he’s digital and in her mind and he knows that, but shit if he’s not a little scared.

He doesn’t know he’s projecting it towards her until she holds her hand out just as they reach the top, and she just grins at him. He doesn’t think, he just _does_ and he grabs onto her hand with his metal one as they hit the drop and it’s the most surreal feeling he’s had.

Because he’s feeling her adrenaline combined with his own, and he yells at the top of his lungs as they ride the coaster. They don’t even seem to realize that they’re able to touch each other, their hands still holding onto each other, and it’s not until V raises her arms that his goes with it that they realize it.

As the coaster is building up to the next drop, both of them move their hands away, but she’s grinning at him and he can’t help but grin back at her. The view is amazing up here, and he realizes he’s not talking about the city.

The ride ends and they get to a stop, and she’s quiet once they leave the coaster and head back to the Porsche.

She’s thinking about telling him something but then the thought stops, and he doesn’t push against it. It feels intrusive. Fucking funny considering he’s a parasite in her damn brain. 

“Shoulda put eddies on it,” She finally says as they get going out of Pacifica and towards the Badlands.

“What?”

“I wasn’t the one who screamed like a little girl,” She grins, and she turns up the radio so he doesn’t have to respond.

He finds himself focusing on those moments over all other moments, as much as he can.

***

He doesn’t know how much time has passed here. All he knows is that Alt has given him a ‘job’ so to speak, because she knows he’s getting bored.

Lonely is the better word for it, but he doubts that she’d understand it.

So now he hangs around the main area where Netrunners try to infiltrate the Blackwall, and he gets to play with them a bit before telling them to fuck off.

Most of the time, they’re little nobodies with nothing to give and he sends them off without a word. Once he scans them of any information that they have, he sends it back to Alt and sends them on their way.

It’s boring, but it’s something to keep him occupied.

Until one day, a little piece of shit netrunner comes in. Starts yelling about how he’s going to turn Night City on its head, he’s going to do what everyone in the damn city couldn’t do. That he’d offer up some valuable information if he got Alt’s help.

It’s the arrogance that gets Johnny’s attention.

“Who the fuck are you?” He asks, manifesting in front of the Netrunner, but he knows his face is obscured. But there isn’t many people who have his cybernetic arm and the netrunner knows who he is.

“Shit, this is even better than I thought! Fuck, you’re—”

“Yeah, I know. The fuck you want?” He’s already started to scan the Netrunner for information.

“Need help getting into the Crystal Palace.”

“The fuck for?” He’s getting bored, and the scans aren’t turning up anything interesting. Blueprints of the Crystal Palace, “You doin’ a casino heist? You know that’s been done before, choom? It’s been done.”

Then he sees it. The central chamber and what’s inside.

The netrunner knows he sees it too, “This hasn’t.”

Johnny grabs the data, copying it over for himself and Alt, and looks at the runner. “And just how the _fuck_ are you supposed to get in there? You got the eddies for it? Just how green _are_ you?”

“Hey man, I got here, didn’t I?”

“So, you’re super green. _Preem_.”

The netrunner shrugs, “Listen, I’m not looking to get in there, I’m looking to hire someone to do it. Download data for me and my boss, and I figure in return…”

He knows what the guy is thinking already, and Johnny narrows his eyes. “Listen. I know someone. But it ain’t gonna be easy to convince her. Or even find her.”

“Who are you talking about?”

“V.” Even saying her name presses something sharp against his digital heart, and he doesn’t react more to it than that. Runner can’t see shit, but he’s still data that can be manipulated if he’s not careful. Alt is already on alert, this conversation taking longer than it should have.

“You mean the new Queen of Afterlife? Fuck, _everyone_ knows her.”

Johnny grins, “Great, then this next part shouldn’t be _too_ fucking hard for you…” and he starts to lay out a plan. Something that isn’t straight forward, and gives V something to unravel, something to sink her teeth into like he knows that she likes. She was always happiest on the gigs where there was a mystery to solve, and what bigger mystery than this?

The runner is gone and Johnny doesn’t know how much time passes before he returns and says the information is in V’s hands. Then, the runner stupidly decides to ask what’s in it for him now that he’s done Johnny’s dirty work.

In return, Johnny apologies and wipes the guys memory, steals all the data on him and the conversation and promptly kicks him out of cyberspace without a second glance. He had never promised anything. Wasn’t like he was sticking to some damn moral code.

When Alt appears sometime later, she tells him she already knows everything, and she’s already prepared it for when V tries to make contact. “You cannot be here when she does.”

“Where the fuck am I supposed to go?”

“Packing you back into your engram. If V succeeds, it will not be for long. If not, I will release you for good.”

He doesn’t get the chance to agree, because he can feel it’s already in motion and he’s being pulled back into the digital prison he had been held in for decades.

But he doesn’t mind it, not when he knows it won’t be that long this time.

***

He feels cold, and then warm. He feels foggy, but solid. He goes in and out of the darkness, and doesn’t know when it happens, but when it does, he feels home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Was gonna wait to post this, but fuck it! Enjoy!


	4. Chapter 4

She doesn’t want to be anywhere near the Clinic while Vik and Judy were working, so she sits with Misty up on the roof. The damn roof where she had sat so many times, and she can’t help but think of the last time she was here.

Given the options of what to do next.

Johnny telling her he was worried about her.

The two of them deciding to go out in a blaze of glory, to solve their problem together.

And only one of them getting out alive.

Misty can tell that she’s getting upset, because soon V feels her hand on her shoulder. “He’s in good hands and you got here in time, V. It’s going to be okay.”

“What if it’s not?” V asks, running a hand through her hair, “What if I just risked it all for nothing, and then that’s it?”

“You always risk it all, V,” comes the soft reply. “You may not always come out on top, but you always risk it. It’s not a terrible quality to have.”

She doesn’t reply, because there’s nothing to say. As much as she’s hated to sit in silence in the last few months, she needs it now. She just stares straight ahead, at where Johnny had last sat. This time, there weren’t pills in her hand, there wasn’t a gun on the table. It was clear night, the city had just started to come alive with nightlife, and she used to look out at the horizon thinking that she’d own it one day.

Now all that mattered was that she got him back. And she wasn’t sure if that was healthy, to think that was all that mattered. Perhaps it wasn’t. But now that she had everything, it didn’t mean a fucking thing if the one who helped her through it wasn’t here.

She wasn’t sure when Misty had left the roof, but eventually it dawned on V that she was alone. Her hands went into the pockets of her Samurai jacket, her foot tapping on the concrete anxiously. If she smoked, now would be a good time to light up. But she still didn’t. Didn’t want to. She just paced around, kicking little rocks over the edge as she waited.

There was so much she wanted to say. So much she wanted to do. Her time was running out, and if Judy’s other plan to help her didn’t work…then maybe it really had just been for nothing. More tragedy piled upon the tragedy that had become her damn fucking life in Night City.

She sits up on the roof, pacing. Fuck, now would be the time to chain smoke if she had picked up the habit. She opts instead to just hug her arms close around her waist, watching as NC goes from night into the early specks of daylight coming over the buildings.

***

_“The fuck is wrong with you? You want tell me what is going on?”_

_“No, I don’t have to fucking tell you anything, rockerboy! Don’t want to read my mind and figure it out yourself?”_

_“Can’t even if I wanted to, because you’re just a jumbled mess of hormones and fucking alcohol!”_

_“Fuck you!” She screams, throwing the bottle at his head, which of course goes right through him and instead smashes against the wall._

_He takes off his shades and they glitch away as he suddenly is in her face. “Tell me what this is about, or I will make you tell me.”_

_“What happened to you promising me you wouldn’t do that to me?” She counters, and the expression on his face falters slightly. He takes a step back and he doesn’t say anything, he just disappears._

_She sinks into the couch and puts her head in her hands, but when she looks up, he’s back leaning against the wall, looking out the window at the sun rising. The silence between them causes her more hurt than she wants to admit to, and she can feel the waves of annoyance coming off him. Then she realizes it’s not annoyance._

_It’s worry._

_Resigning herself to the fact that she’s stuck in the weirdest position of her now shorter by the day life, she sighs. “I got…”_

_He doesn’t look at her fully, but she sees him looking at her from the corner of his eyes, an eyebrow raised._

_“I…ugh fuck, fine, I got jealous, okay?” She gets up off the couch and walks over to the window and doesn’t look at him._

_“Oh?” He asks, turning more towards her, and crosses his arms. “Of?”_

_“Fuck, Johnny, are you gonna make me say it?”_

_The smirk on his lips and the look in his eyes says he is, and she just stares at him. She rolls her eyes and doesn’t give him the satisfaction of getting a verbal answer out of her, but she knows he’s putting two and two together. She had only agreed to the date with Rogue because he was so damn excited about it. But it didn’t mean she wasn’t wildly okay with it – not because he wanted control, but because of what he wanted to do with it. And it was fucked up, being jealous of a figment of your fucking mind._

_So, she doesn’t say it._

_Instead, he says, “Nothing happened. Nothing to be jealous of.”_

_She hadn’t wanted to intrude on his memories, so she hadn’t checked. She wasn’t sure if she believed him._

_“I’m telling the truth,” He replies to her thoughts, and shrugs, “When have I lied to you?”_

_“Uh, all the time?”_

_He laughs, “Sure. But not about this. And you can always figure out my lies.” He glitches out of her sight then, and she’s alone to work off her drunkenness and strange feeling of guilt washing over her, starting out at the sunrise._

***

“Hey V,” Judy’s voice pulled her out of her thoughts, “We’re done.”

V walks away from the edge of the roof and towards Judy. The other woman looks exhausted, and V knows that how Judy looks is how she feels. Maybe also how she looks too. “How did it go?” If it was bad news, she knows Judy would be approaching her differently. Or she hopes she would be.

“Made it through, engram is taking. Vik had to do some other surgery, fix up the cybernetics, update that old, busted arm. But it looks like it worked, just like we said it would.” Judy smiles at her then, and V lets out the air that she’s been holding in, feeling a small weight lift off her shoulders.

“Okay.” Her hands drop from around her waist, “Feeling like you have more to say here though.”

Judy nods, “Yeah. Vik’s monitoring him, but we both agreed that if he seems stable enough, we should bring him back to your place. Right now, it’s the safest and most secure place in all of NC.”

There is a small panic that comes with those words, and with that V finds herself scared, “Are you sure? Wouldn’t it be better if he was here?” She leaves _with medical help nearby_ unsaid.

But Judy shakes her head, “Nah, I’ll help get you set up with everything you might need, Misty already said she’d help too. I think it’s for the best. This way too, you’re not hanging around here.”

“Let me guess, Vik said that part?”

Judy laughs, “Yeah. But he said he’ll make house calls if you need him.”

It’s been hours and V isn’t foolish enough to think they’re not out of the woods yet, but she shrugs and heads with Judy to the elevator. “Alright. Then let’s get a move on.”

“You know,” Judy says, as the elevator heads down, “We still need to talk about your whole situation too, and I think that—”

“Not now, Judy.”

“V, your life is still on the line here! We need to—”

“Please, Judy,” V practically begs, the elevator hitting the ground floor and they step out, “Not now. Soon, I promise but, not now.”

Judy just nods and leads the way into Vik’s.

As V follows, and steps into the basement, Vik is in his usual seat, and Misty is sitting on the stairs. And on the chair is someone she never thought she’d actually see in person. She’s careful on her approach, watching him to check to make sure he’s breathing, but she doesn’t touch him to see if he’s real.

She’s almost too scared to. As if touching him is just going to cause him to disappear completely, or worse, that she’ll wake up and see this is all a dream.

He looks how she remembers him looking, the wonders of cryo stasis and technology at work there, but she notices the differences. He’s in hospital scrubs, his clothes folded neatly in a box to the left. His arm is _almost_ the same but she can see where Vik had to do some upgrades and some parts that had to be replaced completely. But his hair is still long, his beard is still there, if not just unkempt.

He’s real. He’s real, and he’s in front of her, and it’s overwhelming.

And her emotions are threatening to take her over, she has to stop it before it starts. Instead, she takes a deep breath, and speaks to the room, though her eyes are only on Johnny. “Okay, let’s get him to my place.”

***

They get him back to her place safely, and Judy and Misty help in bringing him to her bed and getting him situated. Misty sets up some medical monitoring to help V keep an eye on him, and Judy messes with the medication down in the kitchen, writing down everything that V needs to keep track of.

Once things seem okay, V and Misty join Judy downstairs.

“Everything is written out here, most of this is to help with the pain when he wakes up, and others are to help to engram take; that way he doesn’t suffer what you suffered through.”

V scoffs, “This situation is different, isn’t it? He’s just going back into his own body, it’s not like how he ended up almost taking over mine.”

Misty shrugs, “True, but the transfer is still going to be painful and difficult. Patience, V. It will take time.”

Time. Time was something she didn’t exactly have, but she wasn’t going to take any next step until she knew that Johnny was completely out of the woods. Or out of them enough that he could see the sky, and not the trees blocking it.

She was so used to him interrupting her thoughts, that when she realized Judy and Misty were just staring at her, she sheepishly shrugged. “Sorry, did you guys say something else?”

“Just that you’re going to need to take some of these meds too, V,” Misty gently prodded, and V sighed.

“I said I don’t—”

“V, we have to start preparing you for it. Plus, it will help your current issue, okay?” Judy stepped up, “We don’t know how this is going to change you, and there might be some pretty fucked up steps we have to do to get this to work.”

V laughed harshly, “Yeah, used to the fucked-up bit, that’s for sure.”

Judy just shook her head, and Misty gave a half smile. Misty placed her hand on V’s shoulder, “We’ll get going, but promise to call if you need anything?”

V nodded, “Of course. I have to make some calls too, I promised Rogue and Kerry I’d give them an update when I could.”

“Just remember to take care of yourself too.” Misty adds, as her and Judy take their leave, leaving V alone in the apartment.

Though, she realizes, not alone anymore.

She hears the medical beeping from upstairs and makes her way back up, not used to the sight of Johnny sleeping in her bed. Hell, she wonders what his reaction is going to be when he wakes up in this large apartment that doesn’t seem to be like her at all.

Carefully, she sits down on the edge of the bed, and because she knows he isn’t going to see it or remember it, she tenderly moves a few strands of his hair off his face and to the side. His chest is still rising and falling, and the medication is doing its work – it will be a few hours, maybe even days before it wears off completely and he’s able to wake up. His muscles need to repair themselves, his body needs to adjust, and to heal.

It’s not going to be overnight, even if she wishes it would be.

She puts her hand over his, her fingers curling around his wrist to feel for a pulse. Because even though there is a machine next to her telling her that he’s breathing, that his heart is beating, she also knows not to always trust it.

Or maybe she’s just lying to herself and knows she just wants to find an excuse to touch him, to really truly confirm that he’s real.

Her eyes tear up as she feels the pulse of his heart beating through his wrist, and she realizes just how lonely and overwhelmed she was since he was gone. She removes her hands, careful not to wake him (though with the medication she knows is running through him, she doubts that she could) and gets off the bed. It doesn’t feel right sharing the bed with him, so she decides to sleep on the couch downstairs.

She checks on him a few times during the night, finding herself pacing around, not sure what to do. It’s when she gets thrown into another coughing fit, coughing up more blood now than she had previously, that she decides to try to rest.

It is a restless sleep, but it is sleep all the same. She tells herself that if she sleeps, it just brings her closer to when he’s finally awake.

And that will have to do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I _really_ keep trying to pace myself on updating. I keep telling myself I'm going to give it a few days...and then I just really want to share what I have. So...take that as you will! Hope you enjoy, and thank you to everyone who is commenting and leading kudos! <3


	5. Chapter 5

“Ugh, _fuck_.”

The words are slow to form, slower to come out. They sound more gravely than they usually do, like he hasn’t spoken in decades and he’s still trying to figure out how everything still works.

Eyes open slowly, looking up at a ceiling that he doesn’t recognize, and he feels that this might be a damn dream.

He lifts his arms up, achingly slow above his head. Muscles that haven’t been used in years but working enough. Metal arm that looks almost new, updated and blending with the old. Carefully, he lowers his arms, and tries to get himself to sit up. Next to him, a machine beeps.

As he exerts himself to sit up, the beeping goes a little faster. Heart rate. _His_ heart rate. As he finally sits up, pulling his legs over the side of the foreign bed, things start to click.

“Did it work?” He whispers, mostly to himself, because he’s not sure where he is. This isn’t a place he recognizes – looks like Kerry’s place but it’s too _clean_ to be Kerry’s. View from the window doesn’t look familiar, other than it’s smack dab in the middle of Night City. The afternoon sun has started to set, casting a golden hue over the apartment. He’s slow to move, to look around, to make sure that this body is actually _his_.

So, he does the most rational thing he can think of: he pulls back the waistband of the sweatpants he has on and looks down, sighing in relief when he sees what he’s looking for.

Yeah, this is _his_ body. That’s a good start.

Not his apartment, though. Never lived in anywhere nice like this. Never wanted to.

The wires connecting him to the machine are disconnected with a tug, and with his hand on the bedside table, he finally stands up. Muscles flex in his thighs, not completely used to the weight of his full body. Turning the machine off, he took a moment to just focus on standing, on breathing, on taking in his surroundings – his senses sensitive.

_Fuck._ He smelled fucking horrible.

But that would have to wait. He needed to figure out where he was.

If he was where he _wanted_ to be. With whom he wanted to be.

Or, _maybe_ it had been another 50 fucking years, and he missed his chance all over again; wouldn’t that be fucking _preem_. Time passed differently in cyberspace, for all he knew that was exactly what happened.

But as he stretches out his arms, he looks around. There is a familiar jacket handing on a nearby chair.

_“Put it on”_ , _he says, and watches her as she pulls it over her shoulders. An approving sound escapes from his lips, a grin from the corner of her mind she couldn’t see, “you look good in it.”_

Dog tags he had given her.

_“I’d do the same for you,” she says, her eyes on the tags between her fingers. He’s surprised at her response, for some reason. A rough nod, a overwhelming feeling of trust he might not have deserved but gained anyway._

The bullet medallion she always wore.

_“Why do you hold onto that?” He asks her. “Reminder of what happened,” she says, “how my life changed.” He scoffs, “You need that reminder? You live it every fuckin’ day.” A shrug from her shoulders, “Sometimes, I prefer the physical reminders,” she replies, as she also taps his tags resting around her neck._

His heart leaped hard against his chest, almost knocking him off his feet.

Making his way to the balcony and stairs, he looked over to see if he could see her at all. Blankets were thrown over the couch, and pillows were everywhere – some on the floor, and it didn’t take a genius to figure out she had been sleeping down there. Or restless sleep if she had slept at all.

“I told you, I’m not doing it until—okay, I get it but can we just—”

Her voice was distant but gave him a direction to move towards. He held onto the railing as he slowly went down each step, knowing he shouldn’t be walking around right now. Knowing that maybe he had her ripper and friends to thank for the fact that he fucking _could_.

Reaching the final step only revealed more of the lavish apartment, his eyes scanned the area with no sight of her until he heard her speaking again.

“Yeah, I know. Okay. I’ll call you when I can, okay?” Her voice was coming from outside, from a balcony. Carefully, he started towards it, hand sliding against walls and furnature, until he was in the doorway.

She was only steps away.

Her back was to him, and she was leaning over the railing of her balcony, in ways he recognized might have mimicked him. Disconnecting from her holo, she rested it on the railing. She hung her head low; hand running through her hair before she dropped it unceremoniously to her side. A heavy sigh escapes her.

Tension was running through her, he didn’t have to be in her mind to see that.

But she was so close.

And he was _scared_. That if he moved, it wouldn’t be real. That if he spoke, he’d just disappear.

V lifted her head up towards the sky, as if she might have been searching for something up there. She held that pose for some time, but it was when she lowered her head once more, was when he spoke.

“Gonna tell me what I missed while I was gone?”

It was not at all what he had thought his first words would be to her. He had run through it so many times, and he was so much smoother in those scenarios. Telling her what he felt, what it meant to be back with her, but instead deflected.

And seeing her, with his own eyes, was an overwhelming feeling he never wanted to forget.

She turned around so quickly at his words, “Johnny?” Her voice cracked a little, and he could tell her eyes were watering.

His cleared his throat, “I had a better idea of how this would go, but think you’re gonna have to come to me, V, not sure I can move much more” He quirked up his eyebrow towards her, and _fuck_ if he didn’t love the laugh that came from her as she ran to him and wrapped her arms around him.

The sensation of her physically there in front of him overwhelmed him. Threatened to burn him alive, the realization that he had never gotten to touch her, other than in his mind. With the small amount of strength he had, his arms wrapped around her, face buried in her hair. He closed his eyes, the feeling of her heart beating against his.

They held each other in that embrace for a moment, before she pulled away, and tenderly put her hand on his cheek. Her eyes searched his, looking for something she apparently found as she smiled.

He grinned, “You look like shit,” and she laughed.

“Yep and you fucking smell like it.” Laughter easily escaped him, but the motion brought up a small pain in his chest, causing him to wince at it. A sharp pain, a reminder that as much as things changed, they may have also stayed the same.

But her features softened, concern playing over her expression. “Come on, let me help you back up to the shower. I swear, only you’re stubborn enough to get up after essentially 50 years and decide to come find me rather than ask for help.”

“Like you’re not the same fucking way, V,” He replied easily, putting his arm over her shoulder. She wrapped an arm around his waist, letting him lean on her as they slowly made their way back up to her shower.

He leaned against the wall as she started it for him, gesturing that it was all his. “Think you’ll need help?” She asked.

Once more, his eyebrow quirked up. “Why, looking to see me naked and feel me up, V?” He watched as she rolled her eyes but the smile on her face was different.

“Dammit, you fucking caught me. _Busted_. Brought you back from cyberspace just to feel you up, that’s me,” She said, but the look in her eyes said something else. It made him feel raw, naked already at how he was caught in her vision; had she ever looked at him this way before?

If she had, his mind was blocking it. Maybe to let him experience it here now for the first time.

It felt weird not being able to hear her thoughts or feel what she was feeling. It was much easier to goad her on, to tease her, and to use what she was feeling as a way to deflect what he was. Now he was flying blind.

He moved to push himself off the door frame, but when he did, he stumbled. Not having moved far, V immediately was there, a hand caressing his side. “Looks like I’m helping you,” She said quietly, and he raised an eyebrow at her. But before he could say anything, “You almost fell over, I’m not having you break your body now that you have it back, okay? Don’t worry, I won’t get fresh.”

“What if I want you to?” He teases, but it feels different.

She doesn’t reply, she only smirks.

They stay quiet as she helps him undress. She takes off her shoes and rolls up her sleeves.

Normally, this would be when he’d crack another sex joke, or make some other rude comment, but he doesn’t. As V helps to guide him under the water, he closes his eyes.

He focuses on the sensation of the water on his skin, the warm touch of each drop. He leans against the tiled wall with his hands, the water now cascading down his back. V is somewhere behind him, he can hear her moving, the water splashing from her feet to his as she moves.

It’s when he feels her hand touch his back that he inhales sharply, and she moves it away as if she might have hurt him. The sensation of her hand against his bare skin, sensitive to the gesture, heart pounding in his throat. The touch is gone, but only for a moment as it returns gently between his shoulder blades. She’s hesitant to it, he can hear her clear her throat behind him. This time, it’s welcomed, it’s wanted. Needed. When he doesn’t flinch, doesn’t say anything but nod his head, she starts to wash his back.

They move carefully in the shower, and he keeps his eyes closed as he focuses on the sensation of her touch. How careful she is, as if she’s scared he’d break. That one wrong move would ruin everything.

He knew the feeling, he had been there, all the times she almost flatlined. When she passed out underwater with Judy and he was screaming for Judy to do _something_ , _anything_ to help. When he had to take control and bring her to any of the hotel rooms they hid out in while she recovered, while they were on the run. Any time where he felt he might lose her, and that had been quite a bit.

Her hands move down his arm, down to his fingertips; he feels vulnerable and on fire, two exclusive feelings he had not considered before. The soap she’s using smells like vanilla and lavender, her brand she always used.

Touch starved, needing the connection, anything to tether him to her.

A sigh escapes him, as he feels her hands move down lower, past his ass and onto his thighs. There wasn’t anything sexual about the touch.

It was careful, it was tender, it was not at all what he ever deserved.

His breathing hitched, a sob threatening to escape his throat. He swallows it down, not wanting to open his eyes, not wanting to do anything but memorize what this felt like.

She finished cleaning his other leg and the touch disappeared. He lifts his head, almost opening his eyes to find her, but her hand rested on his shoulder once more.

“Turn around,” V’s voice was quiet, soft in his ear, and he did as she asked with no hesitation. He kept his eyes closed, feeling her guide his head under the water again as she washed his hair gently. Every single touch was careful. Hesitant but soft.

He didn’t deserve this.

What she had done to get him here, it had been a miracle he had managed to reach her. And she did. All so he could be here, with her, in this moment.

He didn’t deserve her.

He felt the suds being rinsed from his hair, as her hands moved from his scalp to his shoulder, and then to rest on his chest. Her hand slid slowly over to his heart, and he heard her inhale sharply. A sound that resonated with him, sounding just how he felt.

_Wrecked._

Eyes opened to see her staring at him, her clothes soaked through. As if they’re still one body, both of their hands reach up to caress the other person’s cheek. Her laugh isn’t a full one at the gesture, and it quickly moves from a laugh to a sob. She rests her forehead against his, as he allows his hands to touch her, fingers moving against the soaked fabric.

Her arms wrap around his middle. His arms wrap over her shoulders to hold onto her securely. He doesn’t know whose legs gave out first (most likely his) but soon they’re back to leaning against the wall, holding onto each other tightly.

V’s fingers dig slightly into his side, and he exhales out at the sensation: a feeling of pain that he hadn’t expected, but a reminder of where he was now. When he breathes sharply, she slowly detangles herself from him. Her movements are slow, but his eyes go wide as she slowly starts to discard the wet clothing, piece by piece.

She’s fucking beautiful, a fucking knockout. He just stares, afraid to move. Afraid to ruin what this was.

She returns to him slowly, to join him under the water. As she worked on her hair, he took the chance to touch her stomach, to gently trail his fingers up her sides, admiring how she felt against his hands. How soft she was, how _real_ she was.

He wants to explore her, discover her, he wants to _devour_ her, but he doesn’t have the strength. Barely able to stand on his own. If she even wants him after all of this, she deserves all of him at her full attention, even if he doesn’t deserve her at all.

His hands move from her stomach upward, fingers grazing the curve of her breasts. Her lips part with a soft gasp, and he swallows down his desire from just the small sound.

Her hands lower from washing her hair, hands finding ways into his own hair, and leans in closer to him. His hands move from her breasts to her shoulders, before slowly moving his hands down her back, down to caress her ass in his hands. She makes another strangled sound as he does so.

It’s too much, it’s overwhelming, and it’s not enough. He leans in, his nose brushing against hers, and she’s receptive as she presses into him more and closes the gap between them in a kiss.

This is not his usual M.O. It’s too tender, it’s too emotional, _it means too much_. It’s a slow and messy kiss, the water from the shower still over them, their skin sliding against each other. He ends up groaning into her mouth, a release he didn’t know he needed, and in reward she kisses him a little harder. Their tongues dance against each other, the kiss grows too urgent, too needful. There is a lot that he knows he’s putting into it that he can’t say, trying to show instead of using his words.

Then the burning of his lungs, the need for air, something he hasn’t actually needed since he had been around her before. The kiss is rough as it breaks, and he sighs after.

Resting his forehead against hers, “I fucking missed you,” he finally says. He doesn’t trust his voice, how it breaks, how it threatens to overwhelm him if he says anything else.

“I fucking missed you too,” she replies, sounding just as rough.

He doesn’t know how much time passes as they just stand there beneath the shower, but eventually she turns it off and leads him gently out of the bathroom. He still can’t fully move without some help, but she’s there for him to lean on as she gives him a towel and wraps herself in one as well.

She guides him to the sink, “Wait here,” she says quietly before she leaves the bathroom.

It’s then that he takes the chance to look at himself in the mirror, to really look at himself. He looks the same. He looks like he did 50 years ago, but he can see where things are different. Scars on his chest from the blast at Arasaka, and around his temples are the scorch marks from Soulkiller, when the tech decided to burn him a little before zeroing him. With everything he’s learned with V, he knows these scars will heal.

He’s staring at himself in the mirror when he sees V come into the reflection behind him, smiling. She’s wearing nothing but a t-shirt, from the Samurai reunion tour in 2020. He smirks.

“Clothes,” she holds out the sweatpants and t-shirt for him, “At least until we can buy you new ones.”

Turning around, he accepts them. “Thanks, V.”

She waits by the door as he changes. Her hand is held out to him as he exits, guiding him back into the bedroom. He wishes he didn’t feel so fucking fragile right now, but knows the reason is good for it. There is so much more he wants, but his body is betraying him.

V pulls back the sheets for him, and he gets in. They stare at each other, unsure of the next move, until she turns. She makes the motion to go downstairs, but his hand shoots out and grabs her wrist to stop her.

To pull her back, to be with him.

_Don’t leave me_ , he wants to tell her. But like a coward, he stays silent.

She read him loud and clear anyway and gets into the bed with him. They pull the sheets over each other, and she rests her head on one of the pillows, facing him. He turns on his side to face her.

V edges closer and puts her hand out, and he places his hand in hers, because he wants the touch and the connection, even if he doesn’t want to admit to it.

But it’s not enough for either of them. Her eyes search his for confirmation, and when she sees it, she moves closer. Soon she’s wrapped around him, her face buried in his neck. He protectively wraps his arm around her, focusing on the beating of her heart.

They fall asleep, entwined in each other’s arms.

It’s the most peaceful sleep he’s ever had in his life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just want to take the time to say that I'm overwhelmed with the response to this fic (I'm used to writing in fandoms that haven't been overly active in a few years) and your comments/kudos have been giving me life! Thank you, just _so_ much, and I hope you all enjoy :)


	6. Chapter 6

As it had been for every night when she fell asleep, the dream was the same. Faced with a decision, making it despite that every part of her is screaming for her to do the opposite.

He’ll forget her. She worries that she’ll forget him, and she will be alone.

But this time, instead of screaming after him, of begging him not to leave, it changes.

He returns, pulls her close, and doesn’t let go.

She wakes up in the early morning, the first night in months where she wasn’t plagued with nightmares shaking her to her core. It doesn’t take her very long to figure out why.

At some point in the middle of the night, they’ve shifted positions. He slept soundly on his back, where she lay with her head on his chest, an arm resting over him. He has an arm around her protectively, as if by instinct, his metal hand holds onto her hand resting on his chest.

It’s a strange feeling, to wake up in this way. Not since before Jackie’s passing had she woken up in someone’s arms. Or specifically, arms of someone who so infuriatingly got under her skin in the strangest of ways.

But he’s real beneath her fingertips. His chest rises and falls as he sleeps, and when she shifts to slowly get up, he mutters something in his sleep she almost doesn’t hear. Quiet words she almost doesn’t make out, but equates to _won’t leave you, V_.

Her heart pounds obnoxiously in her chest, a thought of waking him up in a way that could potentially build on the night before. If that hadn’t been a fluke, had meant more than just the overwhelming sensation of being near each other physically.

But her body has other plans.

Her vision blurs, as she feels a sharp pain in the back of her brain. She moves quickly away from him then, throwing her legs to the side of the bed. Feet on the floor, trying to ground herself before the wave of the relic corruption overwhelms her.

When she coughs up blood, it’s more than she’s seen before.

The bed shifts under the weight of another person, and though he is behind her out of sight, she feels his hand on her back. Cool metal to the warm skin under her shirt, his hand rubbing her back as he edges up behind her.

She feels him lean over her shoulder, to look at her hand.

He doesn’t like what he sees. “ _Fuck_ ,” his voice is raspy from sleep, but she’s also heard this enough to know the other thought behind it.

She’s still getting worse.

“Yeah.” She says, closing her fingers over her palm. “Sorry for waking you.”

He mutters something she doesn’t hear, shifting to rest his forehead on her shoulder blade. His hand slides from her lower back to rest on her side.

They sit like that for a few moments before she gently shifts, to turn to face him. He leans back slightly when she does, moving his hands to rest behind him on her bed.

There is a moment before she says anything, her hand itching to reach out and touch him. She holds back, looking him over carefully. “I still…”

“Can’t believe I’m here?” He finishes, and she nods. “Yeah. Me either,” moving again on the bed to sit next to her on the edge, not wanting to stay still. “Are you…”

“Dying still? Yeah.” V opens her hand again, looking at the blood still there, and sighs. “I might have found a solution but it’s risky.”

She closes her hand again, standing up from the bed. There is sudden contact on her other wrist, his hand wrapped around it. When she looks back at him with a raised eyebrow, he’s giving her the same look back.

“Can’t read your thoughts anymore, V. Gotta tell me what is going on in there.”

“Let me clean up, get food for us. Then I promise I’ll tell you.”

“Okay.”

She washes her hands in the bathroom before coming back out, finding him waiting for her at the top of the stairs. They move downstairs together; he’s not back to his full strength, and she’s just secretly wanting to stay close to him as he may allow. He settles into the couch, and she wanders over to the kitchen. When she returned, it was with two gross looking smoothies. She hands it to him sitting down next to him without a word. He looks at it with a raised eyebrow and disgusted face, then looks at her.

“Uh…V? The fuck is this?”

She smirked, “Same thing I’m having.”

“Which is? It looks like shit.”

“Tastes like it too, trust me--”

“ _Comforting_.”

“--but it’s gonna help your body adjust to the engram more. This way, you won’t run into half as many issues as I did. It’s a Vik and Misty specialty.”

She waited for Johnny to take a drink of it, the face of utter disgust he made only making her laugh. “Yeah, because this was the first thing I wanted to taste when I came back.”

“Oh, I’m _sure_ it was,” V smirked, “Why, what _did_ you have in mind for your first taste when you came back?”

She takes a drink of her smoothie after she speaks, but as soon as she says it, she immediately regrets it. His response does not disappoint.

Johnny’s expression immediately changes to a smirk, devious look in his eyes, and a raised eyebrow towards her. She chokes a little on her smoothie as her eyes go wide, and coughs to clear her throat. Her reaction causes him to laugh, deeply.

She tells herself again that last night was a fluke, that it doesn’t mean what she might want it to mean. Refusing to acknowledge the feelings that run deep now, running like electrical currents under her skin.

So, she deflects, “Asshole.”

“Cunt,” he grinned.

“Eh,” She waved off.

There’s a moment of silence before he decides struggling against the smoothie, setting it down on the table. He shifts his position, “Why are you taking this though? Already have the relic fucking things up.”

“I haven’t been taking it, honestly,” She shrugs, “I didn’t see the point.”

Johnny raises his eyebrow at her, his lips forming into a straight line. “V.”

She huffs and rolls her eyes. “I had _months_ left, I didn’t see the point in fighting against something that was going to kill me no matter what I did.”

“Since when are you the fuckin’ type to give up? You have everything you fuckin’ wanted,” he points out with a broad gesture to the lavish apartment, the disappointment coloring his tone.

“I had nothing else to lose! I had nothing to gain! Fuck, I only bought this place because what else was I supposed to do with all the eddies I suddenly had? Live fast, die faster, Johnny.”

Those words aren’t the right ones. They’ve reached the point of fighting with each other, and she can practically feel the bubbling anger steaming off of him.

“And now? You want to still go out in a blaze of fuckin’ glory? ‘Cause I ain’t about to let that fuckin’ happen!”

“Like it’s your fucking choice, Johnny!”

“It is now!”

She stood to her feet, putting her hands to her hips, aware how strange it might have looked. Arguing with a resurrected rockerboy, in a t-shirt of _his_ band, over the idea of going out a legend. “Really? You want to bitch at me about going out like that? Did you seriously forget—”

“—I didn’t fuckin’ forget, I just don’t fuckin’ see the point in fighting that war anymore!” He stood up, pointing a finger angerly at her, “ _You_ taught me to take pleasure in what life I had, not to fuckin’ waste it, and you’re now telling me—”

“—well maybe you rubbed off on me, Silverhand,” she snaps back. Her arms move to cross over her chest, as she shifts her weight back on one foot.

“ _Don’t,_ ” he warned. One word, the tone behind it dark, the look on his face matching it.

They stare at each other, as V isn’t sure if it’s pure anger or worry that’s driving either one of them now. Eventually, she sighs. She unwraps her arms from across her chest and lets them drop unceremoniously to her sides. “I…okay, yeah. I had resigned myself to only having a few months left, and I just didn’t care anymore.” A heavy sigh escapes her, “Didn’t really have anything to…”

From the way that he looks at her now, the concern he has, she lets the words fall unsaid between them.

“And now?” He asks as if he’s scared of the question, equally scared of the answer.

She shakes her head furiously, biting onto her lower lip. She feels the burn starting behind her eyes, she closes them quickly. There is something that she wants to say, the words threatening to choke her if she doesn’t get them out.

But she opens her eyes at the touch of his hand on her arm, “Tell me what that solution was you said you found.”

“You’re not gonna like it,” she warns.

He raises an eyebrow, “Try me.”

“When I got your engram, I got another copy of the one Alt made me.”

“What?”

“Yeah,” she shrugs. His hand is still on her arm, on her skin. Hyper aware of the contact and trying not to focus on it.

“She didn’t tell me that,” Surprise colors his face, “That wasn’t part of the plan.”

“Are you actually surprised that—wait. Plan? _What_ plan?”

As if it’s nothing, he shrugs his shoulders and moves to sit back down. Enough of a proof that he was getting his strength back. “How do you think you got that information about the Crystal Palace? I sent it to you.”

_What?_ “What?” She blinked a few times, “That…literally doesn’t make any sense.”

Sinking into the couch next to him, her bare knee brushing against his, he starts to explain it to her. The netrunner, using him and the information he had to get to her. How he got the poor fool to change up her routine.

It’s a bit overwhelming, “Was told a ‘mutual acquaintance’ was looking to hire me. I had no idea it’d be you,” she said, a smile creeping up on her lips. “I am surprised that you were behind the cemetery thing.”

His eyebrows furrow in confusion, “No, I might be a lot of things, but I wouldn’t fuck with the cemetery.” He pauses. “ _What_ cemetery thing?” 

“It’s a good thing you flatlined him,” She says, as she wrings her hands together nervously, “because he definitely messed with your memorial marker.”

Johnny’s posture stiffens next to her, and he shifts uncomfortably next to her. The expression he has is unreadable; leaving her to wish she could still feel what he was.

“My what?” His voice is quiet, almost breaking. The air between them seems to feel thicker.

Her cheeks go red, she runs a hand through her hair, “I…uh I got you a memorial marker at the cemetery. The morning after we were in the oil fields. I thought…I thought you deserved a real tribute. Did you seriously not know I did that?”

Shaking his head, he goes silent next to her, as he looks at his hands. She watches him run his organic thumb against his metal one, “ _Fuck_ , V.”

“What?”

“Just…” He starts but he doesn’t finish. He leaves whatever he was going to say in the air between them, hidden away.

The next words she says has to be careful. His marker, they can address another time. “You know how engrams are activated, right?”

He nods, looking back up at her.

“And I have a new copy of mine,” she says, waiting for him to connect the dots. 

The connection isn’t as fast as he used to be, when he had a full view of her train of thought laid out in front of him. But when it _does_ register, anger flashes in his eyes once more. “ _No_ , V.” He says immediately, “Absolutely not.”

V shifts, bringing her knees up to her chest, wrapping her arms around them. “Don’t have a choice.”

“No,” He stands up again, and paces in front of the couch. “ _No_ ,” he repeats again, stronger.

“Johnny—”

“--V, we are not flatlining you! It’s out of the question!” Johnny doesn’t know what to do with his hands, fidgeting with making fists. His eyes are wide as he stares at her, and she realizes it’s not with anger, but with fear.

A fear she recognizes, but it doesn’t matter. “Told you, not your decision to make. You already saved me _twice_ , Johnny,” she points out.

“And I’d fuckin’ save you again in a heartbeat!” He raises his voice, chest rising and falling hard. He takes a sharp breath in. 

They don’t need to be connected for her to know they both were feeling the same thing: fear. “I don’t _want_ to die, Johnny,” She says softly, “but _this_ time it will be under my control. Vik and Judy are still working out the details, for now I just have to wait. Take the damn meds, try to buy myself more time now.” She leaves off that she has something to lose now, that hadn’t been a possibility to her before.

“The meds you haven’t been taking?” He questions, and when she looks away from him, he sighs again, “And if you don’t go through with this?”

“Four months. Maybe five if I’m lucky. Judging by this morning, luck might be running out.”

He paces, and as she stands up again, his metal arm punches out into the nearest wall. It leaves a small hole, reminding her of all the times he’s tried to do that in her old apartment, but it never left a mark.

His fist stays in the wall for a moment, head hanging low. He says something, as he removes his hand, something she doesn’t hear.

“What was that?” She asks, stepping towards him, ignoring the want to touch him.

“Don’t want…” is the quiet reply, speaking in half formed sentences. When he looks up at her, his eyes are red. “Not when…”

_Not when he just got back._ She swallows hard. “I know. I know. But I’ll be…okay. You have to trust me.”

He’s silent. She knows that this would be the part of the conversation that he would normally just glitch away from her. To be alone with his own thoughts, to leave her with her own, but he can’t do that now.

She feels strange, knowing she must have a conversation with him like a normal fucking adult. He can’t just glitch away when things get uncomfortable, she can’t just take Omega Blockers when things get too rough. Everything still feels too raw. Surreal. 

Finally, he nods but walks away from her. She watches as he makes his way to the balcony. There’s a pack of cigarettes out there from the last time Kerry had come to visit her; she’s not surprised when she sees Johnny grab the pack and the lighter.

She decides to let him be, and heads back upstairs.

***

Hours pass before either of them are in the same room together.

She’s not bothered by it; she welcomes the space to think and clear her head. Not a full 24 hours since he had woken up, and they were already bickering with each other.

It had actually been a small comfort. As much as things changed, things stayed the same.

She stayed upstairs, going over her messages. Below her, she could hear Johnny coming in and out from the balcony; the tell-tale signs he’s pacing. Something she had gotten used to him doing in her head, or out of the corner of her eye, a way of working things through piece by piece.

In the middle of sending a message to Kerry, she hears it.

Johnny has found one of her guitars.

_“I like it more stripped down,” she tells him as he plays on the couch. She’s trying to relax, but lately just being near him causes her emotions to go haywire. If he notices the spike, he doesn’t say anything._

_“Yeah? Why’s that?” He asks, not taking his eyes off the guitar as he plays._

_“Don’t gotta listen to your whining over the tune,” grinning, and the immediate look he shoots her makes her burst into laughter. It doesn’t stop him from continuing on, though._

It’s when she goes down the stairs that she realizes, he didn’t find one of _hers_. He found _his_ , left at her apartment after Kerry said he didn’t feel right hanging onto it.

Her message to Kerry is forgotten as she shoves her holo in her pocket.

Johnny playing a slower version of ‘Never Fade Away’, though he’s not singing along. As she gets closer to him, he looks up from the guitar and gestures with his head for her to sit with him. She eagerly does so, resting her hand on the back of the couch as she watches him play.

“Out of all the places, you buy this gonk lookin’ place,” He smirks, not looking away from the guitar as he continues the song.

She chuckles, “This is what happens when you take down Adam Smasher and Arasaka, you become a legend. With lots of eddies to burn.”

“You’re welcome,” He snorts at that, “All the gold, though? The chrome? It’s not you.”

“No, but I figured I had half a year left of my life, what else was I supposed to do with the eddies?”

“Hookers and blow, naturally.”

“Never been a glitter person. And you remember how much Clouds freaked me the fuck out.”

He laughs at that, “Never thought I’d be stuck with a prudish merc.”

“And I never thought I’d be stuck with a perverted rockerboy, but here we are.”

He looks up at her then, and she ignores the squeeze of her heart as he easily returns the grin she has. “Stuck together,” he says, before returning to the guitar and a new tune.

“As long as you can put up with me.”

“Put up with you before, can put up with you now,” He replies easily, fingers moving expertly over the guitar.

“Didn’t have a choice before,” She reminds him.

He pauses in the song, and looks at her, “But I have a choice now,” and it feels like it’s close to an admission of something else.

She swallows hard, biting her lip again, a loss for words. He returns to the guitar, picking the song back up.

As he continues playing, she pulls out her holo and calls Kerry.

Kerry answers almost immediately, “Hey V, any news?”

Shrugging at the camera, she turns the holo around to show Johnny playing ‘Chipping In’. Through the holo she hears Kerry joyfully laughing, almost in relief. Johnny grins, and looks towards the camera.

“Better be a welcome home party, Ker,” he says, and Kerry’s reply is immediate.

“Already in progress. Gonna be _supernova_. Call you both later!” The call disconnects, and V tosses the holo to the other side of the couch. Johnny stops playing and sets the guitar to the side, sitting up and leaning forward, his arms resting on his knees.

“Ker already knew I was back?”

“He helped me get into the Crystal Palace. You know, he’s always wanted to play there,” She shrugs innocently and Johnny smirks.

“How explosive was it?”

She grins, “ _Very_.”

And when he grins back at her and speaks, it does something to her she doesn’t want to touch.

“That’s my girl.”


	7. Chapter 7

For a week, they worked to figure things out. Get used to whatever this new situation was.

Meaning, they didn’t actually speak about anything emotionally relevant because using their words was something neither of them were prepared to do. Words? They were for those brave souls who knew how to get what they wanted.

Neither of them were those people. He certainly wasn’t, ironic considering his former life.

Getting used to being _solid_ took some time. He’d slip up sometimes, thinking he could glitch through a wall only for him to walk right into it. (She laughed a few hours about that one.) She’d slip up too. Get so annoyed at something he said in jest, for her to throw an empty bottle at him – and have it actually hit him. (She spent an hour apologizing.)

The one thing that seemed to make sense to either of them was when they would retire for the night. It had become an unspoken rule; sleep in the same bed, because neither of them could sleep otherwise.

The second night he was back, they tried to sleep separately. Awkwardly dancing around what had happened the night before, it was easier to act as if they were just roommates.

He didn’t sleep at all, and she woke up screaming in the middle of the night.

Screaming _don’t leave me_ , her voice breaking into sobs. He had run up to her bedroom and wrapped his arms around her, reminded her he was here. Hearing that, so real, falling from her lips, broke him all over again.

They had slept soundly after that but tried to sleep separately the next night.

When it happened again, breaking both into pieces that neither wanted to pick up, that had settled it. So, every night, he would fall asleep with V’s body entwined with his own, his arms holding her protectively. Neither one ever spoke more about it, or why they were doing it.

It was codependent and potentially unhealthy. He wasn’t the king of healthy choices. But the way V would sigh against him just before she fell asleep, or how she’d stretch in the mornings; despite it killing his sanity, it was worth it.

Nothing had happened since that first day. When it wasn’t night, they acted like nothing had ever happened between them. He figured it had been a comfort connection, that it had just been the shock of the impossible, that he had been so touch-starved, that he had…

…been lying to himself for almost a year, so what was a few more weeks?

It was easier to lie, to ignore the underlying _fear_ he had; that he would lose her as soon as he had gotten her.

Her Ripper and the BD queen were good, but he wasn’t confident they were good _enough_ to keep V on the living side of the world when they finally went through with their plan. Neither of them hadn’t contacted V yet with any new updates, and Johnny just kept living each day with her as if it was the last for both of them.

He wasn’t the same man he had been in the 2020s, she had somehow seen to that, affecting him without even trying. Now, his fight was a new one. Just fighting for another day with her, wondering if that made him some stupid fucked-up fool, or stronger for it.

Loaded situation that he couldn’t fully unwrap yet, and what was the point? The moments were good. He was going to hold onto them.

Once a week had passed, he had most of his strength back. Which meant he was getting antsy, itching to her out of her apartment. Get back into the city. Get into some good old-fashioned trouble.

When she said she had to get some shit done, asking him to come along, he was more than willing to get his ass out of her weird ivory tower it was clear she fucking hated and get back on the ground.

V had given him back his aviators and wore her own with blue trim; while she wore his dog tags still, he had stolen her bullet medallion, and wore it under his shirt. The two of them looked like a fucked-up pair of gonks looking for trouble, and if that didn’t fucking warm his little heart a bit. The other surprise was the keys to his Porsche, and they were off. Driving with the windows down, radio blasting, screaming out every word to every damn song. Including his own - where he let her take the lead, opting to listen to her singing along instead.

From the corner of his eye, he could see her hand out the window, catching the breeze with her hand, floating it up and down with the movement.

She looked how he felt. Happy.

There hadn’t been an exact location for them to stop at first. Normally he’d bitch about being her driver for the day, but the truth was that he didn’t actually _care_ as long as he was out and about.

He let the additional _because it was with her_ off his internal monologue.

And since it was her, it ended up they got caught up in a few gun fights. Things he was more than happy to participate in, even happier when she showed him what in the glove compartment. His gun, and _fuck_ if the day didn’t just keep getting better and better.

Cyberpsycho down, eddies transferred over, fuck he hated doing dirty work like this shit but dammit if it wasn’t fucking _fun_ to get this type of release.

Fighting alongside V also was another positive. Knowing each other well enough that even without being connected they were able to communicate without a word. Just simple gestures and nods, and they were cleaning house as if they were pros who had been partners for years.

Shit just felt _good_. The adrenaline was through the roof in him, and normally he would act on it. Ride the high he was feeling, get good and _fucked_.

But there was that pesky thing, twisting around his heart and squeezing it tight that he was refusing to acknowledge. Didn’t want to fuck this up. _Again._

Back in the car, as it hit late afternoon, he looked over to V settled in the passenger seat next to him. “Ideas?”

V smirked, “I’m thinking of a really good spot. Quiet. No trouble to be found, where we can just _chill_.”

He raised an eyebrow, “Afterlife, then?”

She laughed, “ _Bingo_.”

As he took off towards Afterlife, she leaned out the window, screaming out the lyrics to the song on the radio as if she didn’t have a fucking care in the damn world. Something sharp holding on in his chest twisted.

But again, it was something he wasn’t going to focus on.

***

Afterlife. He had been here more than once with V, either as the construct or _as_ her, but never as _himself_. The realization hit him once they started towards the door, and he could not help the smirk on his lips. They both walked in with the same confidence and air about them, though he was still half expecting the bouncer to stop them.

Instead, he nodded to V, called her boss. Eyed up Johnny, raised an eyebrow. But if he was going to give any trouble, he didn’t. Johnny shook his head and pushed past the guy, hearing V snicker in front of him. Anything else was soon drowned out by the loud bass and music blasting through the speakers.

Ah, _yes._ The perfect place to unwind.

It was easy to follow behind V, as she greeted people that she knew. Like she belonged, like the world was at her feet. This V, he liked seeing more often.

She sat at the bar, and he joined her, Claire already looking both of them over and smirking.

“V, your new output is a Silverhand impersonator?”

V laughed, “Nope. Not my output.”

Johnny smirked, and added for kicks, “Not an impersonator.”

Claire laughed hard, and looked at him closely, “Sure thing, haven’t heard _that one_ before.” She got to work, mixing two drinks and set them both in front of him and V, “Knew V had a thing for dead legends, but didn’t expect anyone else to actually go along with it. There you go,” She gestured to the drinks, “Two Silverhands. Let me know if I can get you anything else, V.”

Claire left to serve other patrons, as he looked at the drink in front of him. Already knew it was his recipe, but he was far more interested in how V was refusing to look at him right now. She looked as if she was _blushing_ , even under the neon lights.

It was just…too good. “You have a thing for dead legends?”

“Ugh, _shut up_.”

“What about newly alive ones?”

“Johnny, stop talking,” V rolled her eyes, picking up her glass and putting it to her lips.

He grinned, “Fucking _make me_.” Teasing, pushing, building on the good mood he was riding. Building on the grin she had on her face all damn day.

_Take the bait_.

She took a drink, and he watched her swallow the liquid, slowly setting down the glass on the bar after. V leaned towards him, the scent of tequila on her lips, so close that he could almost taste it.

His eyes darted down to her lips, and back up to her eyes, unable to help how he magnetically leaned in.

When he was close enough, when either of them could have finished it, she breathed, “No.” Then immediately backed away and took another drink.

_Fuck_ , that was a play older than he was, and he fucking _fell_ for it. But the way she grinned, the way she laughed, he wasn’t too hung up on the outcome. He took another drink, as her expression changed slightly.

“Besides, someone wants to talk to you,” She said, gesturing behind him. He turned around, and saw Rogue standing there, an unreadable expression on her face.

“Rogue.”

“Johnny. Can we talk?”

“Sure.” He stood up, picking up the drink, downing the rest of it and setting the glass down. He followed Rogue, though not without looking back to V.

She just waved him off and continued to pick up her drink.

He followed Rogue through the backrooms of Afterlife before heading into one of the private booths in the back. Rogue took a seat on the couch, gesturing for him to join her.

He sat down with an eyebrow raised, “What do you need?”

“I don’t know what’s worse,” She replied, “Having to deal with you as part of V, or actually seeing you in front of me.”

He crossed his arms over his chest, “That what this is about? You seemed to adjust well enough before.”

“Because I could still force myself to think you weren’t really back.”

“Not thinking of a third run on Arasaka, if that’s what you’re asking.”

Rogue shook her head, “No, I don’t think V would be too happy with that.” She shifts on the couch, leaning back into it more, crossing one leg over the other. “I just want to make sure you’re out of the game, Johnny. For all our sakes.”

A small and bitter laugh escaped him, “I’m not even back a week, and you’re already fuckin’ pullin’ this? _Fuck sake_ , Rogue. I told you, things are different for me now. Ain’t no two ways about it. Got a different fight now.”

He watched as her eyebrow raised at that, but he held her look. Once upon a time, this would be leading up to him goading her on. Getting her to get into a fight with him, pushing and pushing until she finally broke. Giving into base human primal desires with her had always been easy.

Until it wasn’t anymore. Their conversation at the drive-in still held true; she just wasn’t for him anymore.

“Too many people give a shit about V now, Johnny,” Rogue continued, carefully picking and choosing her words. As if she was putting them all out on a silver platter as if he needed it laid out, so he’d understand better. It was almost insulting, but he held his tongue. “You hurt her in _any_ regard, and you’ll find the whole city will turn on you.”

It was too easy to smirk at this, to raise an eyebrow and look Rogue over in earnest. “Whole city has turned on me already, don’t you think?”

She chuckles at this, “Whole city doesn’t know you’re back yet. I imagine you’re going to let them know.”

“Honestly,” He leaned forward, “Hadn’t considered it.”

“Bullshit, Johnny.”

“Nah, Rogue, I’m serious. Learned a lot from my trip with V in the last year. City’s changed, but not how I wanted it to. Fuckin’ place isn’t gonna shift on itself cause of one person with a fucked-up vision. Doesn’t mean I’m gonna sit back and let the city roll over me. Just means I’m not givin’ so much of a shit what it thinks.”

“She really did change you,” Rogue says, surprised tone to her voice.

“You bring me back here to just talk about that?”

“About your obvious feelings? No. Not exactly,” Rogue said, still with a smirk to her lips. How damn pleased she was with herself calling him out.

Some things didn’t exactly change. Kind of refreshing.

“Then what? Kind of got something to do.” Like get back to V, left unsaid. Something told him Rogue already caught onto that.

“Just that there was a lot that went into getting you back. I don’t know if you realize just how hard she took it. She’s still—”

“Dying. I know.”

“Johnny, just—”

“—I fucking _know_ , Rogue.” He sighed heavy, wringing his hands together. He pushed off his knees to stand, “Listen, this chat has been real enlightening but I gotta get back.”

Rogue stood up when he went to move past her, and he stopped in his step. Her eyes scan him for a moment, before a soft smile appears on her face. Gently, she pressed a kiss to his cheek, and patted it after with her hand. “Don’t fuck up this time.”

She walks out of the booth before him. He sighs and rubs her lipstick off his cheek before he heads out after.

Rogue is nowhere to be seen, but sees V chatting with some of the regulars, telling a story, sitting on the bar. He hangs back against a wall, watching her.

She speaks with animated gestures and wide grins, and she changes her voice for different people as she tells the story. He can tell by this voice that she’s telling a story about Jackie. One of their first gigs they had done together, gone horribly wrong. She’s told the story a few times, and he knows it well because he’s seen her memories. 

In one of the rare moments where they needed an outlet, someone to talk to. After a particularly hard job that had left her on edge, and there had been minimal shooting involved. _Damn fucking BD producers and their fucking corpo hungry bullshit_ , she had said after.

She had taken that gig hard but followed it through to the end. The entire time he could feel her anxiousness, her discomfort coming off her in waves. Normally when she drove home, he wouldn’t manifest himself next to her in the passenger seat, but that time he had. Sat next to her in her shitty car, not saying a damn word. Just stayed present and in her eyesight.

He had walked with her from her car up to her apartment when he could have just glitched up and met her there. He hadn’t been sure at the time why he was doing it. Looking back on it now, he understood his motives better. 

When they had returned to her apartment, V opened up about how she was still mourning for Jackie. He opened up about how he was still mourning for the life he had, the regrets that overwhelmed him at times. Once she had finally gone to sleep that night, he didn’t disappear until he knew she was okay.

Now, V was sitting on top of the bar, Claire handing out drinks as V had the crowd listening to her roaring with laughter. The new _Queen of Afterlife_ , and every damn gonk in there was hanging onto her every word.

When the story was done, or close to it, he pushed off the wall and walked towards her and the crowd. She turned to him and smiled as he approached with his chrome hand out to help escort her down from the bar.

“Storytime is over, folks,” He spoke. One of the guys near her, who had been trying to get her attention, laughed.

Oh, this would be good.

“And who exactly do you think you are?” The man stepped up, looking like he was trying to find a way to intimidate anyone in the bar to gain respect. A new merc on the streets, obvious by how he carried himself.

“Doesn’t matter who I am,” Johnny replied with amusement. He knew V was taking her time for show, slowly sliding off the bar, her hand still in his. Once her feet were on solid ground, she let go of his hand, settling her hands on her hips.

Amusement was playing on her features. As he looked at her, her lips quirked up in a smirk. 

“You look like some Silverhand impersonator,” the man continued, “Is that who you think you are? Some dead asshole?”

Fuck, it was hard to keep a straight face. And so, he didn’t. “Second time hearing that today. Nope. For starters, not fuckin’ dead.”

The man steps up, trying to use his posture to intimidate Johnny. From the corner of his eye, he can see V practically shaking from holding in laughter.

“And who are _you_ exactly?” She finally asks, standing in between the two of them. She leans back against Johnny in a show, and he plays along with his hand resting on her hip. “If I was interested, would have told you. Also, this is my bar now. So, get the fuck out.”

The man tried to protest, tried to get under the Queen’s good graces, but her word was final. The bouncer was coming over to drag the man away, and those who had been watching were roaring with laughter. “Claire, round on the house please,” she says loudly for those to hear, and then leans in, “Just not the good shit.”

Claire winks and nods, and V lets her hand slip into Johnny’s.

“Come on,” she says, “Let’s get out of here.”

The small crowd that had been hanging onto her every word disperses, and he can’t help but grin like a damn fool walking behind her as she leads them out of the club.

Once they’re outside, she leans in close to him, a devious look in her eye. Her hand slips from his and goes into his front pocket of his pants. His eyes went wide, and he moved without thinking, before she suddenly pulled her hand back.

Dangling between her fingers were the keys to the Porsche.

“Fucking hell, V,” He growled, “Coulda asked for ‘em.” But he wasn’t mad. Not in the slightest.

“And miss that reaction? Not on your fucking _life_ , Johnny.” She’s smiling and bouncing in her step, as they get into the car. She starts it up, he settles into the passenger seat next to her.

He rolls down the window as she pulls out of the parking lot, resting his hand out against the wind as she drives. “Where we goin’?”

“Patience, samurai,” she replies, turns the radio up and guides them on their way.


	8. Chapter 8

The car pulls to a stop, parking just outside the front, but there’s no hiding where they are.

It’s heavy, this feeling she has. It rests on her chest, pushing down so she can’t breathe just right. She hasn’t been breathing just right for months now. There’s this pressure that rests on her heart, sharp and twisting, overwhelming her.

They’re here because _he_ needs to be. Because she wants to show him the mark he had left.

He’s here now, and she knows that. But there had been time he wasn’t. Where he was only in her mind.

When they had gone to the oil fields.

The energy driving from the docks to where Grayson had indicated was his final resting place was restless. She could feel him under her skin, anxious about what they would find. Scared that there may not be anything there at all. The entire ride, his thoughts were clouding her mind. She had wondered if he had been aware of what he was letting her see, because what she was seeing was unlike anything from him before.

She didn’t push. She didn’t pry into his fears. She just let them come crashing towards her, a tight feeling on her chest. The heavy feeling that never quite went away after that day.

He had glitched out of the car before it stopped, moving ahead to the spot. By the time she had walked to him, he was lowering himself to a piece of metal. “There’s nothing here,” he had said, and just _how_ he said it almost broke her.

In front of her had not been the man she had been dealing with for some time. In front of her was a man who was broken, the walls around him chipping away at a rapid pace.

She had said that she would change that, let the world know that he _was_ here. Carving his initials into the scrap metal, finishing when she saw him sit down next to her. What would she really write, he had asked, if this was truly his resting place?

“The guy who saved my life.” It was an instant response, truthful and honest. Not a moment of hesitation, but she worried: had that been the wrong thing to say? Instead, she heard his voice break, how badly he had wished that to be true. That he was trying so hard not to fuck up what they had. That when he woke up in the morning, he felt like something was missing, until the relief washed over him that she was still there.

His words had crashed over her, wrapping around her tightly. She had wanted to comfort him, to do _something_.

It had been the first time she realized he wasn’t wearing his bullet proof vest around her anymore. A sign of trust.

Everything had shifted that night. _Everything_.

And now, V stood next to Johnny outside the steps of the Columbarium. His facial expression was almost the same as that night; the nervousness and fear playing delicately on his features like a watercolor. But like she had felt that night months ago, she didn’t push. She didn’t pry.

They stood in silence together, until he turned to her. Quietly asking, “will you show me?”

Nodding, she led the way.

It was quiet as they walked through the Columbarium; visitors were sparce. Too many people were busy trying to beat the city, too busy to remember who the city took from them in all its years. Night City always took and took, it never gave anything in return.

She led him to the back of the structure in silence. It was strange, she knew, to end such a good day with something heavy as this, but she wanted him to fully understand what he had meant to her. That she would have gone through the trouble of doing this, even when at that time they had only just started to get on better terms.

That she had recognized his sadness was the same as her own: in the end, they had both just wanted to be remembered as someone meaningful and true, even if deep down they were almost always anything but by the basic definition of the words.

When they reach it, she lets him go on ahead of her. She watches as under the low light Johnny raises his hand to his face; his hand over his mouth and his other hand hanging at his side, metal fingers twitching nervously.

He had asked her what she would put on his grave, and she had done exactly that.

She’s close enough to hear him take a sharp inhale. He moves his hand up to touch the marker, his fingers touching the stone as his full name flickers in blue against metal. After a moment, his head hangs low, as his hand on the marker seems to be the only thing keeping him upright.

V approaches him then, allowing herself the moment to touch his shoulder blade, so he knows she’s there.

He lifts his head and turns towards her, moving his arm off the marker and he wraps it around her shoulders. He pulls her close to him, as her own arm snakes around his middle. Her fingers find the edge of his shirt, and she draws little circles over the fabric to soothe.

With her head pressed against his chest, she feels his heart going faster. She feels his shaky breathing. He wraps his other arm around her, and he buries his face into her hair, mumbling something so low she can’t hear.

Her arms wrap tightly around him, and in a way, she allows herself to mourn. He’s here, physically beneath her fingertips, solid and alive, but it’s to mourn something else. The past. Of what had happened, how they had gotten to this point. The risks they both took, how neither of them should really be alive right now.

But they are.

When he finally allows himself to detangle from her, he takes a small step back. His eyes scan her face, as if there is some answer he was looking for.

He moves his hand down her arm to her own hand, fingers entwining. The need for contact, the need of something to ground him; she understands the gesture better than she should. She had spent months searching for it, to only realize he was what she had needed all along.

She wants to tell him that if things go south, that if her four months are up sooner than they thought, she wants him to do this for her. Remember her.

She doesn’t say the words. There’s no need to. She has a feeling he’s already thinking about it.

Slowly in silence they walk back towards the entrance, passing a father and child talking. The child asks difficult questions as to why she can’t speak to her mother; V thinks nothing of it until the child says she’s bullied because her friend’s father was able to have Arasaka preserve their soul so they can speak whenever they want. Why can’t the little girl have that?

Johnny tenses up at the conversation, his hand squeezing hers tighter. It’s not the place to correct those in mourning, and the sooner they’re away from it, the better.

The mood between the two of them is thick as she guides the car back to her home. She doesn’t want to call it _their_ home. She doesn’t even really want to call it _her_ home, because it doesn’t feel like it.

But it’s not theirs, because she can’t assume that he’ll stick around after all of this is said and done. Even if the rational side of her brain is fighting every one of these thoughts.

He had said he had a choice now, to stick together. She was too scared to trust it.

He’s quiet on the ride home, but his hand rests on her thigh as she drives. His metal thumb gently rubs back and forth up towards her knee, though he doesn’t make any other advance. She tries to ignore how her heart jumps at every motion, at the feeling of the gesture over the fabric, how she just wants…

She knows what she wants. But she doesn’t want to get her hopes up.

They park in the garage, and when he moves his hand to get out of the car, she feels a longing washing over her in waves for losing his hand on her. Yet another feeling to ignore, as she follows him out and into the elevator, leading up to her apartment.

He settles into the back of the elevator, leaning against the wall. She presses the button for the top floor and moves to stand beside him.

The moment the elevator doors close, suddenly she’s been scooped up in his arms and crushed against the elevator wall. His lips are rough and hard on hers, the kiss is bruising and demanding.

She wraps her legs tight around him as he holds her up securely in his arms, melting into the kiss like it was what she had only _dreamed_ of happening again. Her nails dig deep into his shoulder; her reward was him letting out a pleasurable sound that only causes him to kiss her harder. He grinds up into her, and she moans against the kiss, the delicious friction already causing her brain to short circuit.

When she moans against him, he roughly breaks the kiss and sets out for her neck, his grip still tight around her waist. V feels the marks he’s making on her; trying to claim her as his own. She was already his, for longer than he may have known.

She already feels wrecked, arching her neck back to give him more access, moaning out his name. He makes a strangled sound, and when he lifts his head up as the elevator door dings, the dim light catches in his eyes. Wide, blown, looking at her as if she was the only person on the damned Earth that mattered.

How he looks at her now takes her breath away.

The doors open and he lifts and carries her with ease, surprising even her, towards the apartment. It’s a moment before he realizes he doesn’t have the keys and he can’t open the door. He makes a frustrated sound, because words are lost; she chuckles as he begrudgingly lets her down so she can open the door.

The moment she does, and they step through, he’s on her again so quickly. Lips hot on hers, kissing urgently as he goes for her waistband, and she pulls at the hem of his shirt. He backs her into the kitchen island, and the kiss breaks when he does so, both removing their clothing in a frenzy, urgency there pressing them forward.

There is a moment, when she stands in front of him bare, that she hesitates. But his arms are around her quickly, lifting her up to the edge of the counter, legs spread before him and she doesn’t have another moment to think before she feels his mouth against her clit.

He worships her, he devours her like a man starved, and she’s barely hanging on. One of her hands is in his hair roughly, the other is trying to find some sort of purchase so that she doesn’t fall off the island. The only sounds are her loud gasps, his name falling from her lips repeating over and over like a mantra.

When he pulls away, she glares at him in frustration as he rises though her expression changes instantly as she watches him. He sinfully wipes his mouth with the back of his hand before both of his hands are tight at her waist, pulling her closer off the edge. He doesn’t speak, he just acts. He inserts his fingers without warning, and she gasps at the feeling. He’s rude enough to chuckle at her reaction to him, but as she starts to move against his fingers, fucking herself on his hand, any other words he has don’t come out.

She pulls roughly on his hair, pulling him towards her for a punishing kiss. Teeth grab his lower lip, and he hisses against the sensation, and the retribution he gives is to remove his hand, fingers slowly trailing down her thigh.

It doesn’t matter that she’s begging him, that she’s begging him for release. It plays on his features just as well, plays through the motions of keeping contact, of always touching, of not letting go. He aligns himself between her thighs, and she wraps her legs around him, her fingernails digging into his shoulder with anticipation.

With a rough kiss, he enters her, and both moan at the sensation as he thrusts into her. The angle of the kitchen counter, how she arches her back; she holds onto him to tether her. The fear of floating away, and his grip is on her strong. He roughly marks her neck, and the more he does it to leave a mark as he’s fucking her into the kitchen island, the more her nails dig into his skin to mark of her own. _Mine._

It’s hard, and it’s fast. It’s rough and it’s unlike anything she had ever experienced before. One of his hands moving to her clit as she moves to erratic rhythm they’ve set, everything building. The harder he fucks her, the harder she rides him, she feels like she might rip in two but she just doesn’t _care._

The more he fills her, the closer she gets to release, and she starts to feel the climax building to a point where she knows she isn’t going to be able to stop herself.

“ _Johnny_ ,” she gasps out. It comes out in a breathless moan, and he pulls on her hair as she feels him starting to pulse within her.

His breathing hitches, “ _Val,_ ” he says rough and ruined, the first time he had ever used anything close to her name. She cries out as she climaxes and feels him go seconds after her, muttering nonsense into her skin as they both ride out the high.

It’s a few moments before he removes himself from her slowly and rests his forehead against her shoulder. She presses her lips against his hair, and without realizing it, she starts laughing. Then his laughter starts, and it’s a light and freeing sound that she’s desperate to hear again and again.

“Shoulda done that a long time ago,” He finally says, lifting his head from her shoulder.

She moves the strands of his hair from his face and smirks, “Not sure how that would have worked.”

“With our minds? Woulda found a way,” and he raises an eyebrow at her. He gives no warning, his look turning devious as he pulls her close to him again with a yelp from her and carries her off the kitchen island, towards the stairs. She’s kissing his neck as he carries her, whispering words against his skin of what he means to her. It’s a surprise they make it up the stairs at all.

And the time spent in the shower starts off as a way of just getting clean, but it quickly shifts into something more as V tries her best to ignore the soaring feeling her heart has after. How this time he’s careful on how he touches her, how he caresses her, how he’s worshiping her as a goodness worth the devotion -- as if _she_ was worthy of such an action.

He worships her again on his knees in the shower, her hand tangled in his hair. She climaxes again screaming out his name like it’s the only word she knows how to say.

She returns the favor as he rambles her name over and over again, and she had hated her name before but now it’s the only thing she wants to hear from him like this.

This feeling sits heavy on her heart, twists sharp in her chest, as once they emerge from the shower, she catches him admiring her. Like he had never seen her before, and he tells her “Don’t deserve you,” and says it with such raw emotion that she doesn’t know how to respond.

“You do,” She says quietly, whispering it against his skin, against his lips, marking it into his skin with her fingers.

He guides her to the bed, and once she’s under the sheets with him, he kisses her again. But this time it’s tender. It’s soft, it’s sweet. Like any tension they both might have had resting between them disappeared, the closer they got. There’s something that settles in her brain and refuses to let go now: he’s her home. Nothing else comes close.

She wants this moment frozen in time. She wants them frozen in time, so she can just live here. Stay here, for as long as he will have her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone for your continued readership and support! You are all seriously the best and so very wonderful!


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So...when I wrote this chapter in the beginning of January, there was a lot of shit going on. Thus, this is sort of a soft chapter. Enjoy!

It settles deep in his chest. When he hadn’t welcomed the feeling before, he welcomed it now.

He hadn’t felt this before. Thought he had, but he had been wrong. Had thought himself incapable of it, and yet here he was. Faced with the possibility that there was one person in this world who saw him for who he was, even if he did not deserve her.

To do what she had done, to know he wouldn’t be who he was now without her…it was almost too much. And in his arms, V slept. Peaceful, serene, like he had never seen anything as beautiful until right now.

Putting a word to it was difficult, but he knew what this was.

His hand moves softly against her skin, slowly over her curves as she slowly stirs to wake up.

When her eyes open, she smiles. When she stretches against him, he feels her place a hand over his chest and push him gently onto his back.

She straddles his hips and looks at him with such adoration that he’s not sure he deserves it.

They remind each other all morning that they _do_ deserve this. To be stuck together.

***

“What are you playing?”

Her voice comes from the top of the stairs, and Johnny keeps playing as he watches her descend towards him. Her hand slides delicately over the gold trip of the railing, her black bathrobe hugging her waist but loose everywhere else, bellowing out behind her.

She looks like a dream; she looks like everything he could have ever wanted. Maybe that was she always had been, and he had been put in the head of the one woman who managed to look past his obvious flaws and just accept him for whoever the fuck he had been. Helped guide him into whomever he was now.

The tightness in his chest isn’t getting lighter, but he’s okay with that.

“Got inspired for something new,” He finally finds the words to reply, once she lounges on the couch next to him, resting her feet on his leg. He moves to stop playing, itching to touch her, but she puts her hand on his shoulder.

“Please don’t stop.” She looks at him with a look that he recognizes, a look he gave her the night before, from this morning and he wonders if this is what it’s supposed to feel like. This emotion he refuses to name.

He keeps playing and he hums along as he goes along with it. Her foot moves to the beat of the song. When he looks to her while he plays, her eyes are closed as she moves to the music. Letting herself feel the music, the emotion behind it.

Her eyes open slowly as he’s watching her, a smile curling onto her lips. He finishes what he’s been figuring out so far for the song, resting one hand on the guitar. His other hand rests on her legs, smooth as silk against his fingertips. To go too long without touching her now felt like torture.

“Got any lyrics to it yet?”

“Not yet. Figure it will come out soon enough. I’m not in a rush. Good to just take the time, figure this out,” he’s not sure if he’s thinking of the song, or whatever it was going on between them now, “Wanted to thank you.”

V shifts next to him, and looks at him curiously, “For what, exactly?”

“The memorial.” He shrugs, “Used to think…well, never thought someone would do something like that for me.”

The air is thicker again, but V weaves around it artfully. “Not even one of your legions of groupies?” She teases, poking his bare chest with her finger.

“If they did, it’d just be about mourning the loss of my cock.”

“I mean, I wouldn’t blame them if that’s what it said,” She replied, smirking. “I finally get it.”

“What, thought I was lying?” He asks, setting the guitar down and pulling her towards him. She laughs at the gesture and squirms a bit under his grasp as he pulls her into his lap. His arm settles around her waist, and her arm settles around his shoulders, her other hand resting over his heart. He moves his other hand beneath her bathrobe, up her thigh.

She shifts closer to him against his touch, as if on instinct. He smirks at this.

“Considering you literally said it while we were with Panam, thought you were trying to find a way to hit on _her_ ,” V shrugs, and rolls her eyes.

“Maybe I was,” He raises an eyebrow, “You still keep in touch with her?”

That earns him a pinch in his neck and a stern look that he knows she doesn’t mean. He laughs, hard.

V opens her mouth to say something, but he feels her body seizes up. He sees her eyes roll to the back of her head, and he knows that look too well as she goes into a coughing fit. She pushes away from him and falls to the floor. He’s quick to move off the couch, to be next to her, hand on her shoulder. When she pulls her hand back, there’s more blood there then there usually is.

“Ugh. _Fuck._ Not good,” she groans, closing her fingers over her palm. The silence settles between them, he listens to her breathing, how she’s waiting for a second wave.

It thankfully doesn’t happen.

“V, it’s getting worse.”

“I’m aware of that, Johnny.”

“Have you been—”

“--I don’t know, have _you_?” She shoots back, her eyes searching his. He recognizes the look. Fear. “Don’t fucking treat me like a _child,_ Johnny. I don’t want it. Especially from you.” She gets off the floor and goes to the kitchen sink to wash her hand. He follows her.

She turns the water on and runs her hands under it, as he speaks to her. “Don’t get pissed at me because I’m fuckin’ concerned about you! Fuck sake, V.” He leans against the kitchen island, sighing and saying despite his better judgements and fears; “Think you should talk to your Ripper.”

“No.”

“Why the fuck not?”

“Because I’m not ready to, okay?” She turns the water off and dries her hand, “Things are… _fuck_ , Johnny, things in my life are finally okay, and maybe I just want to enjoy what I have right now rather than call up Vik and ask him to medically flatline me for something we don’t even know is going to fucking _work_.” There is a flare of anger behind her eyes, and she goes to push past him, but he grabs her arm.

“Let go of me.”

“No.”

She glares at him, “Johnny, fucking let go of my fucking arm.”

“ _No,”_ he repeats firmer, and pulls her towards him.

She fights against him, but it’s not how they’ve fought before. There’s no heat behind it. Eventually she just breaks down into tears and throws her arms tightly around him, burying her face into his neck. She’s muttering something against his skin, but he can’t make it out.

It feels like an admission of something he’s not allowed to hear yet.

But it’s her holo ringing that brings them both out of the moment. V clears her throat and steps away from him to answer it. One look at who is calling her, she ends up handing it to him and heads back upstairs.

He hears the shower turn on, before he answers the call.

“Hey Ker.”

Kerry’s grinning face is looking right at him, “Oh _woah_ you’re shirtless, am I interrupting something?”

Johnny shakes his head, “Nah, just finished,” He teases, because oddly enough telling him the truth seemed far too personal.

“Well okay, great, ‘cause I need you guys to meet me at the pier tonight around 7.”

“Why? Settin’ another yacht on fire?”

Kerry’s laugher is loud and obnoxious, “It’s a party, choom, anything can happen. Just be there.” Kerry hangs up abruptly. Johnny drops the holo onto the table, making his way back to the couch and the guitar. The shower is running upstairs, and he opts to give her the space he thinks she wants.

He’s only a few notes in when he hears his name, and V is leaning over the balcony, naked and wet from the shower. She just smiles at him and retreats into the shower.

The guitar is very quickly forgotten as he runs up the stairs to join her.

***

The Delamain AV drops them off at the pier.

Johnny grabs his guitar and the small bag they packed of mostly alcohol, following V up to Kerry and the awaiting water vessel. For mostly his own amusement, he hadn’t told her much of what Kerry said. One-hundred percent because he wanted to hear her honest reaction.

He watched as she took off her sunglasses, and shot Kerry a look, “Are we setting another yacht on fire?” Kerry immediately groans in frustration; Johnny just throws his head back and laughs.

V did absolutely not disappoint.

“You tell her you said that?” Kerry narrows his eyes and Johnny shakes his head in between fits of laughter.

“Nope, figured that one out all on her own.”

“God, I fucking hate the two of you, you’d think you both still have the same damn mind.” Kerry rolls his eyes and gestures for them to join him on the yacht.

It’s very similar looking to the Seamurai; a point that V also seems to think she looks at Kerry with her hands on her hips.

“Are you _sure_ we’re not setting another yacht on fire? Because I’m getting deja-vu here.”

“Oh, _fuck you_.”

There’s chatter from the other side of the ship, and V wanders off to investigate. Kerry yells for the yacht to start moving, and a familiar sound of Delamain comes out and replies, “Right away!”

Johnny set the guitar and bag down, and looked to Kerry, “You stole a fuckin’ Delamain yacht?”

“What! No! I did not _steal_ it. Did I _steal_ you, Del?”

Delamain ‘helpfully’ and quickly responded, “Mr. Eurodyne did not steal me, I agreed to the services for free for my dear friend V! And for you, Mr. Silverhand.”

“See?” Kerry gestured, “Didn’t fuckin’ steal it.”

“But you wanted to.”

“Okay, yeah sure, _maybe_.” Kerry slapped his hand hard down on Johnny’s shoulder and grinned, “It’s still good to see you. _Again._ In your own body? _Fuck_ , this is weird.”

“Yeah. Weird ain’t the word I’d use.”

“What would you use then?”

“Haven’t found the right one yet.”

He gravitated towards the chatter, following in V’s general direction, knowing Kerry was right behind. When he walked into the cabin of the yacht, familiar faces looked back at him.

V’s friends, Judy, Panam, and Mitch were there, and the four of them were talking in the corner. From the looks of it, Mitch was in the middle of telling a story, and Panam was spending the time correcting how wrong it was.

He didn’t have the time to ask Kerry how the hell he knew the nomads, when a hand smacked him upside the back of his head.

Johnny turned and grinned, “Denny, good to know you still got that strong backhand, I _almost_ fucking felt it.”

“Oh, fuck you, asshole,” She laughed, “Good to know being resurrected didn’t change your fucking attitude.”

“Are you that surprised? Heard he was traveling around with V; how did we not see _that_ coming?” Nancy smirked; her arms crossed over her chest.

“Both of you look like shit,” He grinned, and the smack he got from both was well deserved, only making him laugh harder. Being then pulled into a three-way hug, that eventually turned into a four-way when Kerry lobbed on, wasn’t exactly what he had expected. Fifty years ago, he would have been utterly pissed off at something like this.

But now, he was just thankful they even remembered him, and were at least pretending to be okay in seeing him.

If anyone tried to tell him that he liked this little camaraderie, he’d kill them.

***

“ _Knew_ something was up during that show,” Denny points her finger at Johnny, “No one can play like that, other than you. I thought, no _way_ that random chick shows up and can play like that out of thin air.”

Kerry pours them all more shots, passing it around the table outside, the radio playing old rock songs in the background. Songs he hasn’t heard in years, certainly not since coming back to Night City. Songs from the 90s, the 2000s, shit he didn’t expect to hear again. “What, you didn’t believe V was my new fling?”

Nancy laughs _very_ hard at that, and when Kerry shoots her a look, she just replies, “No, honey. _No._ Someone looking like V, no way you’d land someone that good. Not that Johnny deserves her either.”

To that, Johnny just raises his glass and takes a shot, his silence agreement with her. He doesn’t deserve V. Not in the slightest, and yet he’s still lucky. Painfully aware of how lucky he truly is.

“Fuck you very much, Nance,” Kerry replies, throwing the shot back.

“Aww, Nancy, that’s sweet!” V replies at the same time.

V and her friends have joined them, V sitting next to him, with Panam and Mitch next to them. Judy is off looking for a little bit of peace and quiet for the moment. “Shit, V, you played a show?” Panam asks, and Mitch shakes his head, “Weren’t you listenin’? Wasn’t her. Was him,” Mitch drawls, waving his hand in Johnny’s direction.

“I can play on my own, thank you very much,” V replies, taking the shot and downing it, and pours herself another. “I just happen to be better at shooting things.”

Johnny immediate bursts into laughter at that, and he knows it gets him a glare, “Woman, you couldn’t win a bottle shooting contest.”

“Fuck you, dick,” she grins.

“Is that a challenge? Are we gonna have a shooting contest?!” Panam claps her hands together, “Because I want in.”

“Can we not?” Denny rolls her eyes. She brings her attention back to Johnny and V, “I don’t even know if I fully understand whatever the fuck happened to you two, but hey, fuck it.” She lifts her glass, “To better days and longer nights.”

Johnny laughs, “The fuck kind of toast is that?”

“The one you fucking _drink_ to, Silverhand,” she glares back, and he rolls his eyes as those at the table repeat the toast and down their shots.

“Don’t mean to ruin the atmosphere,” Judy’s voice comes in, and she walks up to the table, looking mostly at the ex-band members, “But so, I used to listen to your stuff all the time. Any chance we could get a little bit of a show?”

V grins, “Do it!”

Nancy laughs, “Only instruments I see on this boat are the guitars,” as she gestures to Kerry and Johnny, “let them have at it.”

***

It’s not the gathering that he at all expects from Kerry.

He had expected a blow out at Kerry’s place with hundreds of people he didn’t fucking know, but instead got this small yacht party – something Johnny actually found he _preferred_ all things considered.

Weird how shit worked out.

Delamain had stopped at a nearby pier to let Nancy and Denny off, both needing to get back to their lives, but left with the promise for another reunion soon.

Panam and Mitch had to get back to the Aldecaldos. Panam, the true friend to V she was, didn’t leave without threatening Johnny a bit. Johnny, being the shit he was, made a comment on her ass. Which, of course landed him with a punch in the arm, but it was worth it. The smack from V after was _also_ worth it.

If only because he looked at her with hint that he was _into that_ and V turned bright red.

Only V, Judy, Kerry, and Johnny were left on the ship. Johnny and Kerry sat on the couch on the deck of the ship, jamming with each other the way they used to years ago. Judy was sitting on the floor a foot or so away from them, sitting with her back against a wall, enjoying her cigarette. V was laying on one of the edges of the yacht, mirroring his position when they first had joined Kerry on the Seamurai.

Which then brought an idea to his mind. When he transitioned into playing the little tune Kerry had played on the Seamurai, Kerry stopped his own playing and looked at Johnny curiously.

“You heard that?” Johnny just raises an eyebrow at him, and Kerry rolls his eyes. “Right, forgot, of course you heard that.”

“Was actually over there,” He gestures to where V was, and smiles at her positioning. Her hands are behind her head, one leg is straight out, one is bent. He can see her foot tapping against the ship to the beat of the song. The exact position he had been in. “You couldn’t see me though.”

“Weird. This mean you dug the tune?”

“Yeah,” He nods, and lets Kerry take the main tune back as he plays up again, and Johnny jams on a twin harmony to it, blending well with it. He moves to the music, and Kerry is grinning. “Tune was stuck in V’s head for a week.”

He sees V raise her hand with two fingers, “It was two weeks,” she calls out, and puts her hand back behind her head.

“Still weird to me that you guys just…kind of shared everything like that.” Kerry comments.

Johnny shrugs, “Got used to it for a while.” He leaves off that he misses it sometimes.

“I’m still weirded out that I heard you on the dock that night,” Judy cuts in, looking at Johnny. He raises an eyebrow towards her, as she explains to Kerry, “Yeah, I had new tech I was testing out with V. Wasn’t 100% clear, but I heard Johnny when…” She trails of, waving her hand of the subject.

He’s thankful, because he doesn’t really want to think of that right now. Trying to leave the past where it belonged.

“She heard you?” Kerry asks Johnny, and at the same time, Judy and Johnny reply, “long story.”

Kerry chuckles at that, and transitions into another tune.

Johnny stops playing, tapping his foot to the new tune Kerry is playing. He turns his gaze to V, peacefully enjoying the music. He watches her for a long time, unsure of how long, before she moves.

V shifts from where she was, and lowers her feet back to the deck, walking over to sit next him on the couch. She tucks her feet under her and rests her elbow on the back of the couch, her chin resting on her fist. “Taking requests?”

“Sure,” Kerry replies, “What you want?”

She’s only looking at Johnny though, “Play the song from earlier today.”

“Not ready yet for public consumption,” he says, but he feels something sharp twist, something warming his skin.

Kerry has stopped playing, “New tune? Come on, man, you can’t leave me hanging!”

Judy has also given her attention to him, and Johnny sighs, “Alright. Warning, no words yet.” He adjusts the guitar on his lap, and strums away at the new song.

The tune is a little sad, slower than he usually plays, but progresses into a more hopeful song. He plays the chorus for a bit, before he hears Kerry start in and join him, picking out a chord progression he hadn’t thought of.

Soon the two of them are writing the song on the fly, Johnny taking the lead as Kerry improvises into the song.

Before they know it, Delamain is pulling back to the pier, and their long night cruise into the early morning is over. One of Delamain’s AVs is waiting to take them back to V’s place, and there’s a taxi for Kerry and Judy.

They pack away their guitars, what’s left of the alcohol they brought on board, and walk off to the pier together.

Kerry and Johnny shake hands, before Kerry just pulls him into a hug, that lasts a little too long before Johnny pats Kerry’s back forcefully to break it up.

V and Judy are saying their goodbyes, talking about something in hushed tones where he can’t hear, as Kerry clears his throat.

“So, the song,” Kerry says, as he adjusts his bag on his shoulder, other hand holding onto the neck of his guitar, “It got a name?”

He thinks for a moment, and shakes his head, “Nah. Thinkin’ it might just stay untitled for now.” His eyes drift from Kerry to V still talking to Judy, hugging her goodbye.

“I’m thinking you already know what it’s called,” Kerry replies, putting a hand on Johnny’s shoulder once more with a small smile before he heads over to the taxi, “Judy! I want to hear all about the weirdest virtues you’ve edited…”

When he reaches the AV, V is waiting with her hand out for him to join her. He follows her in, setting the guitar and bag down, and takes a seat with her as the doors shutting behind them.

She cuddles up close to him, putting her head on his shoulder. “Have a good time?” She asks, as his fingers play with the ends of her hair.

“Mmhm,” he mutters. He hums the song on the trip home, and her fingers tap along against his knee.

The old Silverhand would have been bored out of his mind tonight, and that thought isn’t lost on him. Instead, he realizes he couldn’t have asked for anything better.

He doesn’t want to give this life up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anyone who says I listened to Kerry's Boat Song on repeat for an hour while writing this chapter is a _liar_.
> 
> It was three hours. _No regrets_.


	10. Chapter 10

“You ever miss it?” She asks him one day, as he’s driving them out into the badlands on Jackie’s Arch. His Porsche never cut it out there (“It’s not a fucking off-road vehicle, V!” he once complained, before she drove _right_ into a cactus, _potentially_ on purpose), so she lets him drive the bike and she holds onto his waist as he drives them out of the city.

She doesn’t really admit that she is sitting this close because she wants the contact. She also doesn’t admit that he’s the only one she trusts other than herself to drive Jackie’s Arch. She doesn’t have to, because she’s almost certain that he knows this already.

But when she asks if he misses it, she says it into his ear. Gives her the excuse to get closer to him in the process.

Fuck, she’s lovesick.

“Miss what?” He yells back.

She just taps his temple, as if to indicate when they had a stronger connection. He understands it instantly, and replies, “Sometimes.”

They’re quiet on the rest of the ride out there, not because she doesn’t want to talk, but that the bike makes it hard to.

She tightens her thighs around his legs, and slowly lets go of his core. She leans back, closes her eyes, takes a deep breath and holds her arms out to catch the wind.

His metal hand has moved from one of the handles of the bike to her thigh, securing her with him, but he doesn’t say or do anything more. If anything, he speeds the bike up, which causes her to burst into pure joyful laughter.

She screams happily over the roar of the bike and the call of the wind, her hair blowing wildly behind her. When she returns to him, she wraps both her arms around Johnny’s core and rests her chin on his shoulder.

Out of the corner of her eye, she can see him grinning.

They pull up right outside the Aldecaldos camp, Johnny cuts the engine and lets V depart from the bike before he does the same. Night City was starting to make her go a little crazy, he had pointed out to her, and it sounded like she needed a break from the bustle of the city to something a little different.

Calling up Panam and asking if she’d be down for a visit was easy. Getting Johnny to promise he wasn’t going to make crude comments the whole time was a completely different story, but it was one of the things she liked about him. His stupid fucking comments, even the ones that got him punched from Panam herself, were some of the most amusing things.

“V!” Panam is of course the first one to greet them, and her expression changes as she looks at Johnny, her eyebrow raising and her lips sneering slightly. “Silverhand.”

“Ass Queen,” He replies, tipping an imaginary hat, and when Panam winds up to punch him, he steps out of the way and laughs.

So, when _V_ punches him, his smug look on his face quickly changes to shock and then, “ _Oh,_ harder next time,” He winked and then bowed in a grand gesture, before heading into the camp. In the distance, V can see Johnny already caught the eye of Mitch, waving him over.

Panam sides up to V, the two women watching over the camp. V’s eyes are on Johnny, watching him fist bump with Mitch, and get a beer, already getting around the fire with folks as if he belongs there. They’re welcoming to him, because a friend of V is a friend of theirs.

He looks at home because he used to _be_ one of them. She wonders if they have any idea.

“Gotta ask, V. What is it about him?”

V shrugs, “It’s complicated.”

Panam puts her hands on her hips, “Uncomplicate it then.”

“Fake answer or honest answer?”

“Honest answer, I have a feeling the fake one is gonna make me roll my eyes.”

“I…” V pauses, before the she feels the door open as she finally admits out loud, “love him.” 

Panam inhales sharply, before she smirks, “Okay, I lied, the honest answer made me roll my eyes, I want to know the fake one now.”

V laughs, “Insanely good sex?”

“Alright, okay, I’ll _allow_ it,” Panam replies, a far easier smile on her face. She nudges her shoulder against V, who is thankful for the subject of love not being pushed on.

She hadn’t expected to admit to it, let alone say it out loud. Though, she supposed she hadn’t exactly told him yet.

Panam clears her throat, “Okay, but seriously, you’re doing okay? I mean, it was great to be on that fancy as fuck boat gathering and all, but we didn’t get much time to chat about...”

V frowns, “Yeah. I mean I’m okay as expected. Relic is still there; the outlook is still the same. I think it’s four months left?”

“Shit. V, come on. Nothing we can do?”

“Vik and Judy have a plan, but there’s still parts they need to figure out. And I’m not too keen to go through it just yet anyway.”

They start to walk towards the camp, slowly continuing the conversation. “So, what, you’re just living as if these are your last days?”

“Is that so bad?” V asks, still walking but feels Panam pull on her shoulder.

“V, come on. Hell, is that fair to _him?_ ”

“I’m happy. I’m actually _happy_ right now. I’m trying to enjoy it all before it all goes fucking ass over a cliff, which everything with me _usually_ does.”

“Alright, alright,” Panam holds up her hands in surrender, “Then lets go and enjoy ourselves, yeah?”

They get further into the camp. Johnny is in the middle of a group with the other Veterans, telling a story. She can just hear Mitch exclaiming, “No fucking way!”

“What’s Mitch on about?” Panam asks, and V shrugs.

“Johnny knew Santiago, used to actually run with Nomads for a bit. Most likely talking about that. Not exactly subtle, that one.”

“He _knew_ Santiago? Are you serious? I _have_ to hear this!” Panam is off and running towards the group, leaving V in the dust.

With a laugh, V takes off after her, “Wait!”

***

She doesn’t expect Johnny to actually get along with her friends in the Aldecaldos at first. But it hits her, as she watches him talk about a job he ran with Santiago, the grin on his face as he does it, that he’s _happy_ here.

He laughs loudly, gestures broadly. Doesn’t actually mind answering questions he knows he would have ignored completely before. Things are different. For him, for her.

She had seen his memories, seen the good and the bad of his life through the war and the aftermath of it, hiding out with Nomads and eventually returning to Night City reinvented as new man.

Every single point of his life, before it joined with hers. And then every moment after that.

He’s mostly talking with the veterans, sharing war stories. They know he was a deserter (hell, anyone that listened to his discography knew _that_ ), but also know what he fought for when he came back. The fact that he’s actually admitting to who he is to the vets surprises her. That they believe him surprises her further.

Panam, Mitch, Saul, all of them were willing to help her with her problem no matter what it came down to; but she just couldn’t bring herself to put them in harm’s way. It hadn’t been their problem to fix.

It had been down to her and Johnny. And it only fixed half the problem. Or really, it didn’t fix anything at all, not how it had originally been planned. But she only had months to live, the only solution to fix her life fully was to die. Again. Something she would put off for as long as she could.

She wondered if he had caught onto it yet. If he had heard her quiet argument with Judy when they got off the yacht; Judy and Vik were ready. V just needed to tell them when. To stop putting it off.

But she couldn’t.

Not when everything else was going her way. That she was fucking _happy_ and allowing herself to be that way. That she got to see Johnny almost at peace with himself, with his life and where he was now.

Why would she ruin that? She still had time left. She still had…

“You’re thinkin’ too much,” Johnny’s voice brings her out of her thoughts. For a split moment, she actually thinks he’s still in her head.

But his metal hand touches her shoulder, there is no blue glitch around him. He sits down next to her; he slides his hand down her arm to her thigh. No, he’s here. He’s real.

And he’s hers.

“Got that look on your face,” He continues, tilting his aviators down and looking at her over the top of them. “Don’t gotta be in your head still to know that.”

She snorts, “You also happen to know my looks a ton better than anyone else around here.”

“So? We came out here to clear your mind, not make it worse.”

He has a point there. V shifts, bringing her attention fully to him, finally realizing that the little group around her had mostly dispersed. “Are you sure you’re alright with them knowing you’re… _you_?”

Johnny nodded, and pushed his aviators back up, “Yeah. Folks like that, they’re good people. They’re not going to go and turn you or I into the Corpos just because we’re runnin’ around out here, two people that should be dead. Plus, once they found out I knew Santiago, most of the questions were about that. Left out a lot of key details on that, but,” He smirked, “See? Nothin’ to worry about, V. We’re fine.”

“That’s one thing done but what about—” but she’s cut off mid-sentence, his lips on hers for a quick kiss to shut her up. When he pulls away, she knows she looks a little wide eyed and lovestruck. Her mind goes blank, and Johnny smirks.

“Glad I can still shut your brain up in other ways,” He grins, and stands up. “Come on, they set up a little competition.”

“Competition?” She stands, following his lead, “In what respect?”

“’member that 6th Street party you crashed in Santo Domingo?”

“Where I ran from roof to roof doing shitty warm shots of vodka and shooting targets with Holt’s face on them?”

“And then you got pissed you didn’t win, so you zeroed the gang and took the gun?”

“They deserved it; they were going to fire on me first!”

“ _Uh huh_ , and it ended up being a shitty fuckin’ gun,” He raises an eyebrow at her, “Anyway, _that_. Minus the roof hopping.”

She makes a face, “Minus the vodka too, I hope?”

They approach where the other vets, Panam, Saul, and Mitch are. “Better. Tequila,” Johnny grins.

Panam smirks towards the two of them and gestures to the table, “I did say I wanted a shooting competition. Except,” She looked at Johnny, pointing to him, “We are all using the same gun.”

Both Johnny and V at the same time made a dissatisfied sound, to which V made a face to after.

“Paintball guns!” Panam happily continued and handed them out to everyone who was participating.

“Where are the targets?” V asked, and looked at Johnny, “This is _nothing_ like the roof party, you fucking liar.”

He held the paintball gun in his hand, looking it over for a moment. Then aimed it at her boot and fired, blue paint exploding on her boot.

“ _Hey!_ ”

“Looks like you’re the target, babe,” He grinned.

Panam immediately got between the two of them, “Let me finish the damn rules first! We all do three shots of tequila in succession and then shoot. Goal is to take down as many people as possible. Everyone has a different color paint ball, so that’s how we’ll count who shot who. You want to be the last person standing. Got it?”

“Do I need to get you a side gig, Pan? Seems like you got a lot of time on your hands planning this,” V teased, and Panam punched her in the arm.

“Says the so-called new Queen of Afterlife spending most of her time hanging with rockerboys!”

To that, Johnny bowed dramatically. V shot paint on his boot, yellow exploding.

Those who decided to participate all gathered around, and it ended up being a group of twenty people. Everyone did the tequila shots (some doing more than others) and went off running to the designated area outside the camp, and all chaos erupted.

Paint immediately started flying, and V had to jump out of the way of some shots, managing to shoot Saul in the back with her paint before he managed to turn around and get her. Looking for _any_ type of cover, she ran with her gun and slid behind a large rock, her back to it.

She took a deep breath and came out of cover, taking down a few more that she could see, and plenty of people were already out of the competition. Laughter filled the air, paintball shots, people shouting over each other, it was almost close to perfect.

Johnny was walking through the field without cover, shooting anyone who dared try to even look at him, with a grin on his face. He took down Mitch, who dramatically ‘died’, and yelled out that it was an honor to be ‘zeroed by a true legend’, which caused Johnny to lose his composure only slightly.

He shot Mitch again with the paint for the hell of it, Mitch roaring with laughter.

Panam was struggling a bit with her paintball gun, but took a few people down, before she came out into the clearing. V popped out, running towards her like a damn fool, and fired her gun.

Two shots rang out at the same time.

Both blue and yellow paint hit Panam in the chest, and it was then that V realized that the only other person left in the clearing now was Johnny.

“Friendly reminder that I know where you sleep at night!” V shouted out as she ran and hit for cover, and Johnny instead just chased her like a man on a mission.

“You’re really shit at threatening talks, V!”

A paintball flew by her head and hit the rock in front of her, as she dodged behind it. “You already knew that!”

This level of being pursued by him was bringing up a feeling in her that she wasn’t at all expecting, her heart racing. Adrenaline pumping, she ran back from her cover, turned around and ran forward, activating her cyberware. She jumped high over it, soaring over the rock and Johnny.

It felt like she was moving in slow motion, as he caught her soaring over him. He looked up, aimed and fired his gun in the air as she fired down to him.

And then she felt it. The pop of paint on her thigh. When she landed on her feet, she went to protest but saw that Johnny had a splotch of yellow on his chest.

“Who won?” Panam called out, and V opened her mouth to reply, but found herself being pushed against the large rock by Johnny, his full weight on her, his mouth devouring hers. V holds up her hand, a middle finger out to Panam, as Johnny roughly breaks the kiss and follows suit with a middle finger of his own.

In the distance she heard, “Okay, fuck, I guess no one won then!” and laughter from the other Nomads.

***

They rode back at night on the bike, Johnny once more driving them back into the city. V sat tight against him; her arms wrapped around him snug. It was better for him to be driving, even though she kept wanting to slip her hand lower on him, she also didn’t feel like having them both crash and burn before getting home.

It almost made her sad to be going back into the city, the bright neon lights taking away from the dark night sky and stars she forgot she loved to see. Just how at peace both of them seemed out in the badlands, and how badly she wanted to continue that feeling.

When they pulled into the garage, Johnny got off first and held out a hand for V to take, escorting her off. They head towards the elevator, and he leans against the back as she hits the button for her floor. When the doors shut, he pulls her back flush to his chest.

He kisses along her neck, his metal hand holding onto her core while his other hand snakes under her shirt to cup her breast, and she lets out a breathy moan at the sensation.

The doors open, and she forces herself away from him, but with only with the promise of more once they got inside. He’s looking at her with dark eyes, the pursuit is on once more.

She takes his hand in hers, walking backwards into the apartment. Her other hand goes to his belt buckle, and she knows she’s got a look of pure desire on her face – mirroring the one he’s giving her right now. “Come finish what you sta—”

But she can’t get the rest of the words out.

The relic starts malfunctioning at a higher capacity than it has before, and she screams out in pain, vision going in and out. She lets go of his belt and her fingertips try to still hold onto his hand as she collapses to her knees.

V lose her grip on his hands, as her hands half catch her fall out in front of her. Trying to fight against whatever was happening to her, but it’s an attack that’s almost as worse as the one she had before they took on the tower.

Everything was ending all over again, and it was too soon. She was supposed to have months left, not a month, singular.

She’s in pure agony, and she knows.

She _knows_ this is the end.

He screams her name and is by her side, holding onto her, begging her to be okay, to get through it, that this isn’t the end. _This can’t be the end._

She thought she had more time.

Her vision keeps going in and out, but she tries to focus on Johnny. On his face, his expression. He’s saying something she can’t understand, can’t hear.

“Johnny, I…” Is all she manages to get out, before she goes limp in his arms.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aww, everything was going so nicely! Would be a shame if I _completely ruined that_.


	11. Chapter 11

This isn’t like her normal malfunctions. This isn’t like any of them before, it’s stronger and it terrifies him.

Because this could be the last one.

And that means things were worse off than he thought, worse off than she let on.

If this is it, if this is _really_ it, then he’s lost her for good. And he can’t just get in the driver’s seat, he can’t just take her to help because he’s not in her head anymore. The ways he used to help, the ways he used to get her to safety, it doesn’t fucking work like that anymore.

Her words die halfway on her lips, and he feels her go limp in his arms; and he screams for her to wake up. He shakes her, begs her. “Princess, _please_ ,” his voice cracks.

She’s not responsive.

Johnny’s hands are shaking as he goes through her pockets and grabs her holo. When Vik answers, Johnny interrupts all niceties. “You need to get here, _now_ , she’s fucking flatlining.” He doesn’t say anything else, he doesn’t let the ripper ask any questions, because he’s not sure he can handle them.

V feels so small in his arms. There are small signs of life, short shallow breathing, but he knows the signs. He’s seen enough people die in the war; he’s seen friends die in his arms. This? It was worse.

He lifts V into his arms on the floor, he hugs her close to her. He mutters against her hair, all the things he should have told her. Every single thing that she deserved to hear. That he was a better man, because of her. That there was no one else he wanted to have at his side. That he loved her.

He had never told her that.

By the time Vik, Judy, and Misty come busting into the apartment, he’s not sure how long they’ve been sitting there. She’s still not moving; her breathing has gotten slower over time. His face feels wet and warm, the realization that he had been crying; been essentially in mourning.

Judy and Misty gently pry V from his arms, as Vik pulls Johnny back and to his feet. The men exchange a look, and Johnny just nods. He gathers himself together to help carry V upstairs to her bed, while the rest of them bring the supplies upstairs.

He gently sets V down in the center of the bed, as Vik and Judy quickly work to get set up. A tray of medical supplies and needles comes out of Vik’s medical bag, and he looks to Johnny.

“Kid, might not want to be here for this.”

_I don’t want to die, Johnny, but this time it will be under my control._

But it’s not. She’s powerless to control _anything_ , he’s powerless to stop it.

So, he just nods at Vik. He takes one last look at V, before he disappears down the stairs.

Because he knows the ripper is right. He couldn’t be there while Vik inserted the needle into her skin. He couldn’t be there when the drug was administered. He couldn’t be there, listening to her heartbeat flatline. In what were her final moments, he _knew_ he couldn’t be there.

Ultimately, he was a coward. A truth he hated facing, a reminder he never wanted or needed. But he was, wasn’t he?

It was too fucking soon for this, and he was not of the right mind to let her _die_ just so she could _live_.

But that was exactly what was happening.

His boots hit the floor on the lower level, and his hand hastily rubbed over his eyes. He could feel the heat behind them, rough feeling of his beard beneath his hand. His vision was blurry. The worst was the tightness around his heart. The shaking of his body he _couldn’t control_.

That he was _terrified_.

He stormed outside to the balcony, finding he was gasping for air as he got there, his hands gripping onto the railing so tight that under his metal hand part of the railing chipped away.

All that was left, was the waiting. Watching as the night turned into early morning, waiting for any sort of progress report.

Misty was the one who kept him updated. She brought him water, and things to eat, though he refused to touch any of it.

He smoked. He paced. He punched the brick side of the building a few times. Threw the expensive pool chairs V never used into the pool he had never seen her touch.

The entire apartment was a rich reminder of what V hadn’t wanted, what wasn’t _her._ And it had been because she had let him go before, and then sacrificed everything to get him back.

Never had he felt he was worth something like that. A gesture of devotion, from someone like her, was practically unheard of. He was not someone of good morals, long thinking the world might have been better off without him – it had certainly continued without him in the last fifty years. Proof that what he did, what he died for, had not made a difference.

And now, was V dying for him _again_? Did she die for something that didn’t deserve the sacrifice?

As the hours progressed, Misty’s visits were more frequent. She would spend more time with him out on the balcony. She kept the conversation light. She asked him about who he was, before Night City tried to rule him. Who was he when he awoke in V’s head?

Who was he now?

“Someone new,” he had honestly replied to that, and had meant it. Knowing he didn’t have to care about the wars and the corporations, because he didn’t have to be invested in something that would destroy him again.

The city hadn’t cared about him. Hardly anyone had.

“I wish you fully understood,” Misty had told him, “just how V was when she came back, and you were gone. You _changed_ her, Johnny. In a way I don’t think she fully understood. In the same way that Jackie changed _me_.”

But he did understand. Understood more than he could bring himself to say.

It was another hour before Misty came back out to check on him, but this time, she was different. Her tone scared him, and he prepared for her to deliver the worst. That he had lost V for good, that in the end, Valerie was lost to him.

“Johnny?”

Misty’s voice was soft, a tone of hesitance as she approached him. She stood next to him on the railing, “There’s something that you need to know,” she continued, “and it’s going to be really difficult for you to hear.”

He squeezed his eyes shut, took a deep breath in. His hands once more gripped tight to the railing; his heart was in a constant location of aching in his throat. But Misty was patient. She waited for him to open his eyes, to look at her.

He didn’t speak, he only just gave he a look to continue.

“When V came to Vik with this plan, it was a reach. But Vik started researching it immediately, V’s practically a daughter to him. And you need to know he will do everything to make sure she makes it through this.”

“That all?” He asked.

She softly shook her head, “She had asked me not to say anything to you about this, she was…worried of how you may react. And this was before you were even back, Johnny, this was before you woke up. You know her, she makes contingency plans and—”

“Misty, what did she not want me to know?” He knew he sounded like he was begging. In a way, he was.

She sighed, and looked at her hands for a moment, before returning to look at him. “The copy of her engram, it’s from when you were both in Mikoshi. You’ve been data for fifty years, from when you were in V’s head, and before we brought you back. But _V_? She hasn’t. Especially in these last three months.”

“Meaning?”

But it had already clicked in his head. He needed to hear it from her.

Misty cleared her throat and took a deep breath. She took his organic hand into her own, holding on with both her hands. “Johnny, she’s not going to remember anything that’s happened since she returned. Since you’ve returned. She’s not going to remember that you’re alive.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so, uh, how are you guys doing today? _ahem_. see you next chapter!


	12. Chapter 12

“What?”

But Misty doesn’t repeat herself, because she knows he really doesn’t want her to do that. It feels like all the air has been punched out of his system. He turns away from her, his metal hand still on the railing, and he grips it even tighter, the rest of the railing that is still standing under his hand now crushed to dust. He watched it disappear into the wind, and let his hand drop to his side.

There are other things that Misty is saying to him, but he doesn’t hear her. He can tell that she’s speaking, that she’s making sound, but it all just sounds jumbled.

After a few minutes, she leaves him alone on the balcony.

A heavy sigh escapes him as he reaches up to pinch the bridge of his nose. His shoulders slump, as he lets his hand fall, his fingers tap anxiously against his leg.

She was only losing three months of her life. Two of them without him, and the one with him. The past month that had somehow been so long, and so _fucking life changing_ , and she wouldn’t remember it.

He feels something come up in his chest, wrapping around him unwanted. His old friend of self-loathing and regret, knowing that ultimately, he had been the one to cause this to her. If they had only found a way to save her without sacrificing parts of herself along the way. But she had been determined. And even when he thought that he would never see her again, she once again sacrificed herself for him.

He hadn’t known it was getting this bad. He hadn’t known that this was even…

He inhaled sharply as he remembered watching V and Judy in what looked like a small argument at the pier. But he had thought nothing of it. _And now_? Had it been _right_ in front of his face, and he just didn’t fucking see it through is rose-colored glasses that had been glued to his face?

Fingers twitched, hands moving in and out of tight fists before he grabbed the first thing he could find. A table that he hadn’t broken yet in frustration; he punched his metal hand into the small wooden table. His arm pulled back quickly, and metal fingers caught the edges of the hole he tore, as he ripped the table in half. Each piece was chucked into her pool, joining the handful of other objects he was destroying in his frustration.

But there was a building emotion, threatening to knock him over if he didn’t let it out. He screamed on the top of his lungs in anger, in frustration, in grief. Fucking over everything Night fucking City destroyed, the constant take, take, take until there was nothing left.

Inside, V was fighting for her fucking life, at a cost. _Again._

Outside, Johnny was fighting to hold onto everything that had happened between them, every moment that brought him to where he was now.

_Terrified._ Terrified that the reality would be not just three months that she’d lose. But more. That she wouldn’t know him at all.

Once upon a time, he had wanted to be remembered as a rebel and revolutionary in Night City. He had seen up close how he hadn’t been remembered like that, or hardly remembered at all minus the graffiti plastered around the city. Then he realized that if only _V_ remembered him, if only she remembered him for how he had changed, for who he was with her, because of her, then he could fade away in peace.

But he didn’t fucking want to fade away, and he didn’t want her to fade away, and…

Another scream exploded out, drowned out by the hustle and bustle of the living city. He roared until his lungs were sore and it was hard to breathe.

When he couldn’t muster the energy anymore, he backed himself up against the side of the building and slid down it before he landed on the ground, legs kicked out straight in front of him.

With the action, it brought a clearer mind. Trying to think rationally, trying to think what V would do in his place. Other than burn everything to the ground. She’d try to see it from different angles. Try to look at the positives, despite everything.

It was one of the reasons he loved her.

And it hurt to even think that, when she had _no idea_ that he did love her.

But it was only three months. And the month that was spent with him; he had spent almost every moment with her. If things went well, that was all she lost. She’d still remember everything they had gone through together. From almost killing each other, to taking down Arasaka together. From hating each other to…what they were now. Or what they had been.

He pulled out a cigarette, lighting it as he stared at a fixed spot in the ground in front of him. Thinking of anything that could help her.

And waiting for her to be okay.

Eventually, the hours stretched on into the morning, the sun starting to rise over the skyscrapers. He had run out of cigarettes three hours ago and was running on adrenaline. Even that was starting to tap out.

Misty had stopped coming out to speak to him unless there was an update. There hadn’t been an update in four hours.

Until Misty came back to the balcony, “ _Johnny_ , she’s stable.”

He looked up to her from his spot on the ground, “She’s…”

Misty smiled, “Yeah, she’s going to be okay. Come on, come see.”

It was the fastest he had moved since it had all started, practically jumping up from the ground and running up the stairs, skipping a step as he took longer strides to get up to the second floor faster.

There was a steady beat of V’s heart from the monitor she was hooked up to. Some color had returned to her cheeks, she was breathing easier.

Without realizing he was holding in a breath, he let it out with a shaky gasp, a half laugh that bordered on something else.

Both Vik and Judy looked exhausted, but relieved.

Things moved at a bit of a faster pace then. Both Vik and Judy were too exhausted to drive home, so Johnny insisted they sleep on the two couches downstairs. Misty kept busy making sure everyone was comfortable and made coffee for her and Johnny.

Before Judy falls asleep, Johnny asks her about her BD tech. That he has a wild idea that might help V, and they agree to discuss it when it was clear she was out of the woods.

As Vik and Judy both fell asleep in V’s living room, he headed back upstairs.

Johnny pulled up a chair and sat next to the bed. He allowed himself the risk of reaching out, holding her hand in his own. His fingers moved to her wrist, feeling her steady heartbeat against it. He whispered promises to her he knew she wouldn’t hear, but he still intended on keeping. Told her that he wasn’t leaving her side. He would not let her wake up thinking she was alone.

That there was something he intended to tell her when she woke up, but he would not tell her until he knew with certainty that she would hear him.

The day shifted into the afternoon. At some point he had fallen asleep, waking up to holding her hand in his. Downstairs, he could hear Vik, Judy, and Misty setting up things that V would need. Heard Vik swearing because he slammed his knee into V’s kitchen island. Heard Judy cry randomly because of how relieved she was that V was going to be okay. Misty stayed mostly quiet, offering support to both as they finished what they needed to.

Footsteps headed up the stairs to Johnny and V, and when Johnny looked up from V, Vik stood in front of him with a cup of coffee and a piece of paper.

Johnny slowly let go of V’s hand, setting it gently against her side, as he took the coffee from Vik and set it down on a nearby table. With the paper, he glanced at it before looking at Vik with a raised eyebrow.

“Medication list of what she’s going to need,” Vik said, sitting on the ottoman at the end of V’s bed. “Most of that you’re going to have to make sure gets injected into her IV for the next week while she sleeps. First two medications need to be administered every four hours. Meds I underlined are what she’ll need once she wakes up; she’ll have to take them every 2 hours for two weeks. The last one, one pill every day for the rest of her life.”

“That’s a lot,” Johnny glanced at the list, before setting it to the side, “But I’ll make sure she gets it.”

“Good. Set up everything downstairs, labeled clearly so you know what you’re doing. I’ll administer her first doses, so you can at least try to get some sleep before the next ones are needed.” Vik looked him over, with a raised eyebrow. “Gotta say, heard you were an asshole, based on legends. Honestly, you seem soft.” It’s said with a half grin at the end.

Johnny can’t help but actually laugh at that. “You’re the first and only person to call me soft. Don’t fuck up my rep, Ripper.”

“Don’t worry, it’ll be our secret.” Vik nods, “Listen, if she knew I was saying this, she’d kill me. So good thing she can’t hear me. Valerie – V – she’s a daughter to me. One of the few family I have. If you fuck anything up—”

Johnny smirked, held up his hands, “Not plannin’ on it. But the ‘fatherly threat’ has been noted.” Pause. “You know I’m older than you, right?”

“You’re new to how shit works now, you’re young to me.”

“Sure. We can go with that.”

Beneath their conversation, the steady beat of V’s heart kept tempo. The tune of her recovery, of improvement.

“The drugs we put her on for her recovery, they’ll wear off in a week. But might be longer than that for her to wake up naturally. Her body is trying to rebuild to the new relic.”

“It’s not going to ruin her body like mine did?”

“Judy made sure it wouldn’t. Working through untangling all damage your relic did once we removed the shard.”

It was then that Vik dug into his pocket and held out the relic shard. It was burnt out, broken.

And Johnny wanted _nothing_ to do with it.

“Was yours,” Vik continued, “wasn’t sure what you wanted me to do with it.”

Johnny stared at the broken piece of technology in Vik’s hand, but didn’t reach for it. Didn’t touch it. A reminder of what had been, of how it did end up killing V – it wasn’t a reminder either of them needed. His digital prison for years that he didn’t need to hold on to.

“Toss it,” he finally said. “Neither of us need it. Or want it.”

Vik nodded, as he shoved it back into his pocket. “I’ll dispose of it properly.” The unsaid so that no one can copy the technology was left alone.

The two men fell silent, as Johnny brought his attention back to V. Sleeping peacefully, the steady beating of her heart.

“You love her?” Vik asks, and Johnny doesn’t look away from V as he responds without hesitation.

“Yeah.”

“Does she know?”

When Johnny doesn’t reply, he only lowers his head slightly, Vik sighs. Johnny hears him get out of the chair, then feels a strong hand on his shoulder. It’s not an action of reprimand; but of understanding.

Vik leaves them to head back downstairs. Johnny hears Misty saying goodbye to Vik and Judy, and the door shut.

It’s quiet for a while before he hears anything again, the sound of Misty coming up the stairs. “I’m going to stay for a little while. In case you want me to watch over her if you try to get sleep.”

He nods at her comment, but doesn’t look away from V.

Misty doesn’t walk away just yet though, “When she came back from Arasaka Tower, the first place she went was back to was Vik and I. At first, she seemed okay. You know, how you run on adrenaline after something traumatic, you’re trying to do anything to just stay standing. To just keep moving forward.”

His eyes shifted from V, looking to Misty as she spoke. He stayed silent.

“But the moment I asked if you were still with her, that was it. It was like a dam; she just broke down. I hadn’t seen her like that since Jackie’s _ofrenda_. But after that? It was a day before she was out on the streets again. Reckless, nothing to lose. I got worried about her. We all did.”

Misty moved away from the top of the stairs, and closer to the bed. “I’m not telling you this to make you feel any sort of guilt, Johnny, because we both know there was nothing that you could control. I’m telling you this, so you understand. I’ve never seen her happier than when she was telling me about you. Even when she was pissed off at you, there was always an undercurrent of something else. The fact that you are still here when you could have left? It speaks volumes. And I suppose I just want you to know that it’s nice to know that someone cares for her like she should be cared for. Not many people get second or third chances in this life. It’s a gift.”

Johnny swallowed hard, air he didn’t know he was holding in, “Misty—”

She shook her head, a soft warm smile on her features. “There’s nothing you have to prove to me, Johnny. Or say. Keep watch over her, I’ll come check on you in a bit – want to make sure you’re taking care of yourself too.”

Misty took another look at V, before nodding to herself and heading back downstairs. 

V’s heart monitor still beeped away steadily; a rhythm set. It would be a few days before she was awake, but he would make sure that he was here for her when she did.

He wasn’t going anywhere.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i just want to continue to thank everyone for reading! two chapters left <3


	13. Chapter 13

She’s in front of Alt, in front of Johnny. She knows that her body is done for, she knows that there’s no place for her here anymore. She tells him, “Body’s yours. You have the keys.” She means it, she’s made her peace.

There is no chance for her, not really. The deal was the same in her eyes. He’d get a second chance, and she’d fade away knowing that one of them was living on.

But he subverts her expectation, going against the deal. He refuses, he shakes his head. “ _No._ Told you I wasn’t gonna do that to you, and I meant it.”

She fights him every step of the way, but he doesn’t fight back. She wants him to fight back. _Begs_ him to fight back. Anything, _anything_. Something that proves to her that…

…she isn’t sure what she’s asking for, the words are too heavy to voice and the feeling between them both is too thick.

Everything left unsaid is dying between them. In six months, she’ll die too.

The only real significant touch they ever have is his hand on her shoulder. She cries out, she screams after him, _“Don’t leave me!”_

The only true happiness she had ever allowed herself to feel, the one time she finally had let herself fall – it was gone.

And in a blink of an eye, so was she.

Waking up is _violent_. The pain is immeasurable, and it takes all she has _not_ to scream herself awake. She’s scared to open her eyes, because she’s scared about what she will need to fight through.

He had led them into the Tower, he had led them to the end. It was now up to her to make it through, make it worth it.

To suffer through her last six months alone, before it all disappeared.

With a shaky breath, preparing herself for the worst, Valerie opened her eyes.

But what she sees confuses her. This isn’t the tower. This isn’t…it’s not her apartment, it’s too lavish and screams of disposable wealth.

In the distance, she hears a beeping. As she looks down at her arms, she sees the sheets and blankets over her, a bed she doesn’t know. An IV hooked up to her arm, she rips it out with hiss of pain escaping her lips.

Wherever she was, she had to get out. There was no way she was safe here.

When she looked to her left, she cried immediately, voice gasping out in hitches.

He sat in what looked like an uncomfortable position in an armchair, a blanket half draped over him. His legs stretched out in front of him, crossed at the ankle. His elbow resting on an arm rest, his chin resting on his fist.

The beeping dies as she rips off the remaining wires connected to her, and the sound the machine makes as it dies out jolts Johnny up. His eyes fly open and he’s immediately on his feet, a look of pure panic and terror on his face.

But then his expression changes to a look of _love_.

And she starts gasps, feeling like she can’t breathe

He rushes to the bed, sitting next to her, taking her hand into his, and he feels so _real_ that she just cries harder.

He’s not here, he’s not real. _He’s not real._ She’s alone. This is all just another trick being played on her.

“V,” His voice is rough, like he hasn’t really slept in days. “I…” his voice cracks, words he’s not able to get out. Little things that her mind is clearly making up, fucking with her one final time before the end.

V tries to push away from him, she tries to move her hand, but he holds on. “You’re not real,” she gasps out between sobs, “This is cruel.”

He quickly shakes his head, “No, I’m here. I’m _real_.” He lifts her hand to rest over his heart, and she cries harder at what she feels.

The steady beat of his heart, his skin warm to the touch.

“No, you can’t be real,” she shakes her head, vision blurry from the tears, “This is a cruel fucking _joke_ , don’t…” She tries to push against him with her other hand.

It ends up in a way that he wraps his arms around her and holds her close. She burrows her face into his shirt, holding onto the fabric tightly, as she sobs. An overwhelming feeling of sadness that she would never really experience this, that all of this is a trick.

His hand is soothing on her back, his lips are to her hair. She feels his body shaking, and she can’t tell if her mind is making that up. If he’s moving with grief because _she’s_ in mourning of what she’s lost.

“You’ve been in a coma for two weeks,” He says softly against her hair, “You’re going to be okay. I know you’re confused, but you have to trust me.”

_Do you trust me?_

_With my life._

She inhales sharply, sniffing as she moves away, looking up at him. “What?”

His features soften, his metal hand coming up to gently touch her cheek. He brushes the wet tears off her cheeks, “You’re going to be okay.”

“This doesn’t make…”

“I know. I thought I lost—" He starts, heavy emotion weighing his voice down. She can’t feel his emotions, his thoughts, but she sees them playing in front of her.

But her mind doesn’t want to believe it, even if her heart is telling her, _screaming_ at her that this is true.

“No,” she sniffs, shaking her head, “No, you’re just…a trick on my mind, you’re trying to give me him back when he’s gone and you…” She pushes at him, contact made once again. “You’re not real,” she cries. She pushes again, harder, and he shifts at the motion, but doesn’t budge.

Still solid beneath her hands, no matter how much she pushes.

“V—”

“You’re not real!” She yells, “this isn’t fair!”

“Stop thinkin’ that I’m not—” the frustration in his voice is rising, but he struggles against his words, and she finds that curious. She had never seen Johnny struggle like that, not until the end.

“Stop fucking with my head!” V moves to push him again, and she sobs harder. He holds onto her still, pulls her closer to him, refusing to let go. The contact that she had so desperately craved, longing for. Everything she had ever wanted.

It’s official, her brain is cruel.

“ _Valerie_ , I’m real!”

The use of her full name stops her struggle instantly. “ _What_?”

He clears his throat, and takes one of her hands, and places it over his chest. “Here with you. Not in your head, Val.”

Beneath her hand, she can still feel his heartbeat. The faster pulse, not quite matching her own panicked one. She feels him take a deep breath in, his chest rising and falling with the action. “You’ve never called me that…”

She takes her own breath in, shaky as she tries to wrap her mind around things, and he’s quiet as she moves her hands to his face. His hands are still solid on her, both of his hands on her back. Her eyes search his for something, anything, to give this away that it’s all a trick. A glitch, a blue glow like he used to have.

But nothing comes. His eyes are dark and warm, how he looks at her seems so familiar. Like finally getting what she wanted.

“I didn’t then. I do now,” he replies, as she reaches out to touch him. Her fingers touch his beard first, before her palm rests on his cheek. His eyes are darting over her, looking her over, silently begging for something.

He’s solid beneath her fingertips.

Her mind starts to believe this could be true, her heart finally full.

Her eyes start to water, and she softly says, “Johnny?”

His lips curl into a smirk, nodding, “ _Fuck,_ I missed you,” and it’s a moment before he’s pulling her close to him, capturing her lips with his own.

Her heart soars with the contact, of the feeling of everything she wanted, finally in her arms. The kiss is soft, it’s tender, it feels like the type of kiss that you give to someone you love.

And she wants to get closer, she wants more, she wants to get lost in this feeling and never come out. She wants to be marked by him, protected by him. There is no way that her mind is making this up, because she has never experienced a kiss quite like this.

Only, she _has_. The kiss is rough as it breaks, and they both chuckle for a moment. Him in relief, her in shock.

She runs a thumb over his kiss-swollen lips, clears her throat. “Johnny?” She asks softly, her voice quiet.

“Yeah,” he struggles to get out, clearing his throat as his eyes move over her. His hand brushes hair away from her face, tenderly tucking it behind her ear.

“Why did that kiss seem so familiar to me?”

He lets out a little laugh then, “Lots I need to tell you. But we’ve done that before.”

She looks at him with confusion, tilting her head to the side. His eyes hold hers steady, no sign of a lie beneath them.

A smirk curls onto her lips, “Must have not been so great if I can’t remember it, rockerboy.”

He grins, “glad to see you’re still a bitch,” as she leans in closer to him.

“Oh, shut up,” she mutters, her nose brushing against his, before he kisses her again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> one more chapter to go! thank you thank you thank you all so much for reading, and all your lovely comments, they have meant the world! next chapter is also the longest one, so see you soon :)


	14. Chapter 14

He explains to her what she missed from the month he has been back, though he only tells her small pieces and not the whole story. He lets others explain the months where he wasn’t around, explain what happened and how he returned.

He knows that it’s information overload for her and can tell by how she fidgets on the couch as she listens. The way she holds tightly onto his hand as Misty explains just how rough she had been.

She cries when she hears how she handled – or didn’t handle – coming back, and it hits him hard that had he not been there when she woke up the second time, it would have played out the same way.

But they are both here, real beneath their fingertips, alive.

It’s when they’re alone, that he fills her in on the more intimate parts of what happened. She gets upset that she can’t remember their first kiss, that she doesn’t remember other moments between them. “It feels like I was robbed of something,” she says quietly, but he tells her that she’s wrong.

“You’re only missing a few months, Val,” he tells her. “We still have everything else.”

She balks at that notion at first but relents. Acknowledges that had she lost more; she’d be devastated not knowing how they got to this place.

There’s an overwhelming feeling of _love_ that he feels towards her, finally no longer afraid to put the name to the emotion. He couldn’t let things go unsaid anymore, he couldn’t let things end up in a place where he’d have more regrets than he ever held before.

At night, when everyone has left, when they’re the only ones left, he takes her to bed. But it’s not for what she expects at first.

He guides her to sit on the bed and brings out a box from under the bed. Set in front of her, she sees her BD wreath. “Johnny?” She asks, looking at it curiously.

His hands go into the box and take out a shard, as he puts it into the wreath and moves to the bed to sit next to her. “Judy helped me with somethin’,” he says softly. “Figured you were gonna hate not knowing what happened when I came back.” The wreath feels heavy in his hands, as he hands it over to her.

“What is it?” She asks, as she sits closer to him, her arm brushing against his.

“My memories,” He said, with a half-smile, “Been nothin’ but data this whole time, yeah? So…just been recordin’, as it were. Judy helped pull out the important moments for you. Good and bad.” But his mouth feels dry, and there’s a nervousness that he can’t explain. He’s shared his memories of his life with her before.

But none pertaining to her, and what he felt for her.

She looks surprised, and there’s a look in her eye, as he sees them water for the briefest of moments. She puts the wreath on and moves her back against the headboard. “But you’ll stay here, right?” She asks, as she holds out her hand.

“Not going anywhere,” he says, as he puts his hand in hers, and she turns on the BD.

Her hand squeezes onto his tightly as she relives the memories through his eyes. His panic when he first wakes up in her bed, and the relief that he’s in his own body. Then the surge of emotions that shoot through him as he figures out where he is.

She experiences his nervousness and relief when he finally lays eyes on her, how they wrap their arms around each other and don’t want to let go. Seeing how she was, the shape she was in, by his eyes, causes her to bite her lip. Next to her, outside of the BD, she feels Johnny shift closer to her.

He can’t see what she’s watching, but she doesn’t think he needs to.

They’re in the shower, and she’s tenderly taking care of him, and she can feel that he’s so touch-starved that it makes her cry. Just how overwhelmed he is to be back, to be with her, that he doesn’t deserve her. But he does deserve her, she knows that. She doesn’t need to remember everything that happened to know that.

Each memory that unfolds in front of her, told through his eyes, brings different reactions. She swallows hard at how rough she is, but how caring he is towards her. That she feels like home to him, that she _is_ home to him, that she occupies his every thought without him realizing it most of the time.

Afterlife, and his conversation with Rogue. How he watches V take control of the crowd at Afterlife, and he just beams with pride. So happy and content to just be _hers_.

That when she brought him to his grave marker that she had set up, he hadn’t felt he ever deserved something. That he had noted she picked a place for him next to Alt, that she knew what that had meant to him. Could hear his thoughts, that he knew then just how fucked he was, just how in love with her he was, but still couldn’t bring himself to say it.

When the memories shift to the first time they end up having sex, she swallows hard and shifts up from the headboard, moving forward without realizing it.

Next to her, the bed shifts, and she feels Johnny moving her to rest against him, his legs on either side of her, and he wraps his arms around her stomach as she continues to watch the gift he had given her.

The malfunctions she has, the fights they have, the song he’s writing for her that 100% has a title that he doesn’t want to tell her and lyrics he’s too scared to voice.

The little moments where he watches her when he thinks she’s not looking. How he wants to make sure he’s around her all the time. That he’s, for the first time in his life, thinking of the future.

She cries as she watches it, because everything overwhelms her to the point that she can’t stop it.

Then she sees herself fall lifeless in his arms. She hears him screaming out, begging for her to be okay, and the helplessness that he feels not being able to help her. The panic as he wraps her in his arms, rocking back and forth waiting for Vik and Judy to arrive.

Pacing outside, throwing things into her pool he knows she hates. Reacting in ways he only knows how, screaming at the top of his lungs when he finds out she won’t remember.

Waiting at her bedside. Waiting for her to wake up.

The BD ends, and she waits for the lights to stop flashing as it pulls her out. The lights on the wreath go out, and slowly she removes it.

Johnny is solid and still behind her, his chin resting on her shoulder. She feels him bury his head into her hair, and she lets him stay there for a moment before she turns around to face him.

She’s crying. She knows that she is, her face feels wet and warm, and she’s overwhelmed.

He reaches for her, his organic thumb running across her cheek to wipe the tears away. She reaches out and her fingers move over his beard, before her thumb runs over his lips.

She wonders if he realizes that _she’s_ the one that doesn’t deserve him. For what he’s done for her in the last few days, what she knows it took for him to share this with her – to put himself in front of her again completely raw and trusting her.

Her arms go around his neck then, her lips crash against his, and she hears his breath hitch as she kisses him. It’s slow and passionate, it’s tender in the ways that they _deserve_ now. She knows now this isn’t what they’re used to, but they’ve shared enough tenderness between the two of them that he doesn’t shy away.

Heart pounding against her chest, as she melts against his every touch, every kiss, every move.

They undress each other slowly, and with each piece of clothing discarded, it’s a chance to rediscover each other all over again. He kisses her skin in every place he’s allowed to; she gasps beneath his touch as if she might shatter into a million pieces.

He’d pick up those pieces, to put her back together, knowing that she would do the same. That she had done the same when he had returned. That he had done that for her when she returned.

She’s soft to touch, her lips are rough on his, they fall to the bed entwined in each other’s arms. She whispers promises against his neck, she tells him that she’s never letting go, she tells him that he’s her home.

He had never been someone to partake in the act of lovemaking, but this was what that was in its pure form.

Nothing could pull him away from her now, nothing would tear him away.

Love.

This was love.

Against the sheets, they land on their sides, and he pulls her close to him, his calloused fingers rough to her smooth skin, capturing everything they touched. She arches her back against his chest, her hand moving to his thigh. He grinds against her, as he captures her breasts in his hands. She lets out a breathy moan, leaning her head back, access granted to him; his lips to her neck in rough kisses to mark.

She shifts against him, spreading her legs, inviting. The cue is taken, his organic hand sliding from her breast, slowly down her stomach before his fingers move against her clit. She writhes against him, her hand sliding over his to push him further, to slide his fingers deep inside her.

He does, fingers hooking as he feels just how ready she is for him, and it causes a groan to be caught in his throat. She grinds her ass against him more, and he moves at a faster pace. He wants to slowly untangle everything about her, he wants to coax out every desire and need from her, he wants to have her beg him for release.

She comes louder at his motions, curses falling from her lips like a song, and it’s the only tune he wants to hear. She tightens around his fingers, but he stops then, sliding his fingers out and running them up against her stomach before he shifts.

There is little protest from her, only a whine when he removes his fingers, but it stops as he kisses her, hovering above her as she lies on her back.

She wraps her legs around his waist, she pulls him down on top of her, and her hand slides between them to his cock. He buckles forward at the touch, and she grins, slowly pumping him.

He tells her that he needs to be inside her, she tells him she wants to feel him fill her, and it’s all that remains before he lines up and slowly enters her. Pushing into her until she’s taken all of him, a kiss rough and demanding as he pulls back and thrusts into her again.

It starts slow and tender, but she begs him to fuck her harder, to fuck her faster, and he obeys her commands.

Her fingernails dig into his back, the pain pushing him into her harder, and the pleasurable scream that she gives out almost ruins him completely. He moves his hand to her clit, as he tells her to let go, to come for him.

She tightens around him and she climaxes with his name on her lips, a sound so sinful that it unravels him as his climax follows. He kisses her, muttering her name over and over as it is the only word he knows, the only word he _cares_ to know.

“I love you,” he tells her after once they’ve cleaned up and back in each other’s arms. “Should have said it sooner, should have told you a year ago, should have--” but she silences him with a kiss.

“I love you too,” She tells him, “And besides,” she lifts herself up, looking down at him with a look of adoration that he finally feels that he deserves, “I think I already knew.”

***

They fall back into a routine together; different than before. They take care of each other, but there’s no hiding of their affection anymore. There are plans they make now of the future; no longer going from the day to day just trying to survive. Because now, there is _time_.

One by one, the favors start coming back in. Panam wants V’s help with taking down Militech. Rogue has jobs she wants V to go on, and even drag Johnny to. Even River tries to get back into V’s good graces with a case here and there, though she never answers him. Judy never asks for favors, she just sends photos of her trip across the country, sometimes with dorky selfies (and threats to Johnny she never follows through on). 

Johnny and Valerie take their time considering the next steps.

The first step is to sell her apartment that she hates. When Kerry hears that they’re moving, he offers his guest house on his property; it’s not as large as her old apartment, not close to the size of Kerry’s own house, but he offers it for free.

Johnny knows that Kerry is doing it because some part of him still wants them close by, and maybe it’s his age showing but Johnny doesn’t _hate_ the idea.

Valerie agrees to it, only if Kerry lets her throw money at him to clean his damn house because “it’s been over a fucking year, it smells like ass and looks like a drug den.” He refuses the money but does reluctantly hire someone to clean it.

Once they’ve settled into the guest house, and make it their own, things get comfortable. Valerie transitions from being a mercenary; focusing on Afterlife and becoming a fixer with help from Rogue. Johnny writes music again, and it’s not long before Kerry is begging him to go on tour with him like they used to.

They have ‘family’ dinners in Kerry’s house each week, with various people joining depending on what is going on at the time, but it’s always the three of them to start. Eventually Vik and Misty become permanent fixtures at dinners, and once Kerry starts to date someone seriously enough, his new boyfriend joins them.

It’s a life she never expected, but when Johnny joins her up on their roof at night to stare at the stars, she knows it’s the life she finally deserves.

She just worries they’re getting too content. Too quiet.

Quiet doesn’t suit either of them. They both know this.

“Val,” Johnny says, her name on his lips always stirring something within her. He joins her one night on the roof, as they share a bottle of wine, “Got a pretty interesting opportunity drop into my lap if you’re interested.”

He says it with such a mischievous look on his face, a shine in his eyes that she can’t resist. And when he tells her all the dirty details, she laughs.

“It’s _perfect_ ,” she says, “When do we start?”

***

They’re dressed similarly for the occasion; she’s dyed her hair from the bright colors it had been, to black with shades of blue -- only slightly darker than his own hair. She wears a snug fit black suit, sleeves of the jacket rolled up to her elbows; the etchings of her cyberware shown purposefully.

He wears a similar black suit, also with the sleeves up. The small knives on the elbow of his metal arm are sharp and polished, his organic arm spotting a new tattoo that matches her own.

Playing the part, they look every bit as intimidating as requested they be. There is no hiding his gun on his hip, the sneer on his lips. Both of them hide their eyes behind dark aviators, as they make their way into the lower levels.

Above them, the music is loud and vibrating down through the floors. Once again, Kerry had promised an explosive show, and once again, he was going to deliver. “They’ll never fall for the bodyguard act _again_ ,” Kerry had protested when V suggested the idea, the confusion on her face as she was reminded this was something she had planned before.

This time though, things were different. Because the Crystal Palace had seen the likes of V before, but it had never seen what she could do with her partner-in-crime at her side.

And corporations were ultimately easy prey when you understood what they feared the most was their secrets getting out.

“Remember the plan?” Valerie said, as they neared the hallway to the security level of the casino.

“Covering you while you get the data. Think it will be enough?” Johnny asks, pulling his gun out of the holster, reloading.

“It’s a start,” She replies with a raised eyebrow, “but just think of all the _fun_ we’re going to have getting to it.”

They come up to the double doors at the end of the hallway, and Johnny shoots out the security camera that starts to turn towards them. “ _Fuck_ , Val, you just keep getting better and better,” he grins.

On the other side of the door, there’s yelling and the casino security getting into position. They know Johnny and Valerie are coming – given the trail of bodies behind them, they hadn’t made the attempt to hide it.

She pulls Johnny towards her in a burning kiss, and he returns it before the kiss is roughly broken. “Cuffing you to the fuckin’ bed after this,” he smirks, eyebrow raised.

“Oh, babe, I’m _counting_ on that,” Valerie laughs, taking a step to the side as she activates her mantis blades.

They look at each other once more, grinning before together they kick the doors open and go running in; two Night City legends working flawlessly together.

Just as it was always meant to be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and with that...we've reached the end! this story was my first jump into this fandom, but ended up being the first of _many_ things to come! i have been overwhelmed with the love and comments for this story, and just beyond grateful for everyone checking this out!
> 
> if you're interested in more (because what is ending a story without a little self-promotion?) you can check my profile! i'm not sure if there will be a direct sequel to interstate, but until then there are some more fun stories down the pipeline that i'm working on, so you're not getting rid of me yet! 
> 
> again, thank you all for reading, and i hope you enjoyed :)


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